


Blood Will Out

by ConsentFest, frnklymrshnkly



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Banter, Brooding, Coming Out, Complicity, Cramps, Doctors, Endometriosis, Exams, F/F, Family Secrets, Flirting, Getting Together, Grudges, Healers, Hospitals, Memory Modification, Menstruation, Ministry of Magic, New Friendships, Nicknames, PMS, Pads, Power Moves, Re-Education, Redemption Arcs, Self-Reflection, Sharing secrets, Shawarma, Spooning, biscuits - Freeform, blood status discourse, critique of Healing and medical institutions, ferocious periods, grand exits, hand holding, heavy bleeding, high gauge tampons, horrific parenting, hot waters bottles, instant cappuccino, intense period pain, longing for Jammie Dodgers, porno dodging, post-war fallout, quid pro quo, settling for digestives, taking to bed dramatically, when in doubt go to the library
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-25
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-10-31 06:51:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17844503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConsentFest/pseuds/ConsentFest, https://archiveofourown.org/users/frnklymrshnkly/pseuds/frnklymrshnkly
Summary: Marietta Edgecombe doesn’t need re-education. She’s done nothing wrong. She just wants to keep her head down and keep her job. At least until Pansy Parkinson starts acting weird and a visit to the Healer suddenly brings the post-war conversation too close for comfort.





	1. The New Regime

**Author's Note:**

> Dear rose-grangerweasleyisbae,
> 
> What can I say? When I saw your prompt it spoke to me, though (and I apologise for this) I strayed pretty far from the end portion. I am sorry that there isn't more smut and sexual navigation here, but I hope that what I've come up with is still true to the spirit of the prompt. I confess, I had never considered writing about Marietta Edgecombe. What's more, I didn't know if I could make myself care about her. I feel confident I never would have written about her at all without your prompt. But reading it, as a person with chronic pain caused by endo... well, I could not pass up the chance to explore the ways that our bodies themselves affect our desires and the very ways we move through the world. In order to do it that, though, I had to give Marietta a story that made me care about her, and that became the core of this story, rather than boudoir negotiation. It was a hell of a challenge, and an incredibly rewarding one at that. Thank you for giving me that chance!
> 
> I also must say a huge thank you to my beta, who cheered me on as I figured Marietta out and helped me to strengthen this story so much.
> 
> And thanks, of course, to the mods for putting this on!

Marietta walks through the door into the conference room. It’s the largest one at the Ministry and it still had to be expanded by Magical Maintenance. She keeps the handle turned so that the latch makes no noise as she pushes the door back into the frame. Softly, head down, she walks to an empty chair and settles down carefully. 

She’d love to show her disdain for this whole sorry scene by dropping into the seat without a care, but she’s got bad cramps and doesn’t need to add to the discomfort by tossing her body about. Besides, there’s no excuse for a lack of professional comportment—not even when week-one PMS is making her already finite level of patience for this whole crup and unicorn show thin as parchment.

The room is less than half full, as she’d hoped. She’s never been keen to attract a lot of attention. So she’s here two minutes early, technically speaking. Of course, that’s twelve minutes early, according to what the compulsively tardy (i.e., most of her colleagues) insist on calling ‘Ministry Time.’ Most people will rush in during the last three minutes. 

She’s been at the Ministry since she left Hogwarts—a little under two years now. But she’s known about ‘Ministry Time’ for as long as she can remember. In fact, she thinks with pride, there are few Ministry idiosyncrasies of which she is not aware. When your only living parent is a Lifer, that’s the way it goes. Growing up, Marietta always enjoyed hearing her mother talk about work after she Flooed home each evening; it had made Marietta feel in the loop, even a little superior, to hear gossip about Ministry officials, gripes about this or that new regulation, and comments about the qualifications of new hires and appointees. When her mother spoke, Marietta’s mind filled with the images of her own future: climbing the ladder in Ministry meetings by working overtime; quietly distinguishing herself with her commitment and drive, her insider knowledge and workaday excellence. The Ministry had always made Marietta feel safe, stable.

And people had always been so polite when they were introduced to Madam Edgecombe’s daughter, because Madam Edgecombe regulated the Floo Network. “Practical power, Marietta,” her mother would remind her after sharing anecdotes from the day, “is being the one who knows about peoples’ comings and goings.” No one wanted trouble with the Floo Network. 

People are streaming into the conference room now. Someone has spelled the door to stay open. 

Marietta shifts in her seat, trying to find a position that doesn’t make her feel like she’s taken a Stinging Hex to pelvis. She hasn’t found one yet, but she’ll keep trying. If she can find one, at least this day won’t be a total wash.

At the front of the room, Lee Jordan strides onto the raised platform. He’s not carrying anything—no briefcase, no clipboard, nothing. Marietta rolls her eyes at his casual manner. Just as she suspected: amateur hour.

Marietta looks around the room to see who’s here. Mostly it’s other Junior staff like herself, those at the bottom of their departmental ladders, those whose involvement in enforcing wartime policies was the least direct. 

At the front of the room Jordan is joined by Minster Shacklebolt, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Anthony Goldstein, and Granger. Marietta’s hand moves reflexively to her forehead before she can stop it. After running fingertips over the bumps under her glamour, she forces her hand down and places it with the other in her lap, clasped politely. The position is polite, anyway; Marietta’s hands are squeezing each other so tightly her joints hurt. This is who they’ve chosen to run their ‘re-education’ programme? A green Minister and a bunch of kids fresh out of Hogwarts? If her mother could see the Ministry now, she’d be horrified.

Jordan, at least, she understands—he’s three years out of school, a year older than Marietta, and the public adores him. Everyone has always adored Lee Jordan. Cho had fancied him, Marietta recalls with a frown and a clenched jaw. And she wasn’t the only one. The whole school had guffawed over all the stupid jokes he’d cracked during Quidditch matches, fawned over him and the Weasley twins. And now he’s considered The Voice of the Resistance. 

Marietta doesn’t like him.

Not that she likes Granger or Shacklebolt any better. She’s been nursing a grudge against Granger ever since she Jinxed Marietta (for following school rules, thank you very much). The last thing any pubescent girl needs is more spots, never mind ones spelling out specious accusations. 

And she’d adopted her mother’s low opinion of Shacklebolt back when he took an anti-Ministry stance, even before the war broke out in earnest. Then, of course, after he was elected Minister (there’s no accounting for taste) he’d called her to his office for a meeting and admitted that he’d modified her memory without her knowledge or consent when she was sixteen. He’d professed apologies and offered justifications about the war effort. That was the problem with the ‘greater good’ types: they think they’re above the law if their reasons are pure. None of it endeared him to her. 

She and Anthony had at least been cordial housemates before the SNEAK incident.

“Good afternoon,” comes Shacklebolt’s voice, amplified with a Sonorus. “It’s just a couple minutes after two o’clock now, and we’re going to strive to begin these sessions on time over the coming weeks. That’s on time folks, not Ministry time.” Normally, a crowd of Ministry employees would titter at that, at least, but silence greeted Shacklebolt’s words. “I’m just here today to open up the Voices Heard programme and to thank our facilitators—“ he gestures to the pack of former DA members “—Lee Jordan Voices ran a pilot programme of Voices Heard last year amongst the upper-year students. Justin Finch-Fletchley, Anthony Goldstein, and Hermione Granger here were participants, and they have generously agreed to work with us over the next three months. Everyone on this stage is a special Ministry appointment for the duration of these sessions. Please keep that in mind and treat them with the respect and courtesy you would extend to all other colleagues.” A pause. “It is my sincere hope that Voices Heard will prove as successful here as it did at Hogwarts, where Headmistress McGonagall has committed to keeping the programme going for at least the next six years. There is no-one in this room, indeed, in the Ministry, myself included, who can’t benefit from these sessions. They are to be taken seriously. As a community, we need to listen and learn together. It is the only way to take a step forward without taking another two backward.” 

With that, Shacklebolt cedes the floor to Jordan.

“Thank you Minister. And thank you, everyone, for being here.” Marietta represses a scoff–as if they were given any choice in the matter. She surveys the room again and sees that seats are full. There are fifty or sixty of her colleagues in the audience. “Today is the first session of Voices Heard. We’ll be meeting every Tuesday and Thursday for the next nine weeks. As you all know, the Minister and the department heads have decided that attendance at all sessions is a mandatory condition of continued employment for everyone in this room. Try to think of this as an incentive to make the most of each session. It’ll always be the same facilitators you see up here, but a lot of other people will have the floor as well over the next three months. That’s really the point here; given many different voices a chance to be heard. Today we’re going to go over the purpose of Voices Heard, the syllabus for the coming weeks—” Granger waves her wand and parchment schedules appear in everyone’s laps. “—and, most importantly, the ground rules for keeping this a safe space. A lot of what is talked about in this room is going to be very uncomfortable; that’s the nature of radical, active listening. So it’s very important that we all respect—”

Marietta tunes him out. She can’t believe she has to endure nine weeks of this. She moves her clasped hands to rest on her lower abdomen, just over her pelvis. The warmth cuts through the pain a bit, if not the inanity.

***

Jordan drones on for an hour or so, spitting out Muggle rubbish like ‘confronting ourselves’ and ‘undefensive listening’ and ‘nonviolent communication’ accompanied by sombre nods from his cohorts on the stage. After his monologue, Jordan says it’s time to break for lunch.

Around the room, people shuffle about; some get out of their seats, some have a stretch, others turn around in their chairs, craning their necks to speak in skeptical tones to those behind or next to them.

Marietta stays put, but casts her eyes to the back of the room when she hears the _shwoosh_ of the conference room doors being pushed open. Someone must have ducked out on the opening lecture and be trying to sneak back in now that the room is all a bustle. Fenton from Gobstones always thinks he’s too good for mandatory meetings, and Marietta would love to tell their boss in Magical Games and Sports, Kerr, that he skived off the session. That would show him, and he’d _finally_ be sacked; it’s been made clear as Veritaserum that those Ministry employees found guilty of complicity in the post-war hearings continue to have jobs only on the proviso that they fly through all the hoops the new Ministry demands of them.

But Marietta doesn’t catch Fenton out. Instead, she sees Pansy Parkinson, wand held out in front of her guiding what looks like a veritable train of connected lunch trollies into place on the far wall. Mostly it looks to be the same spread of soggy sandwiches that Ministry employees love to hate, along with steaming carafes and the accoutrements for coffee and tea.

It’s a sorry spectacle; low, even by the standards of the new regime—assigning pureblood wizards and witches menial service tasks in these farcical sessions; putting them on display, a caution against upholding magical traditions. A reminder, as if anyone in this room needs it, of the place the new Minister and his supporters would have purebloods occupy in magical society.

Marietta gets out of her seat and strides over to the table where Parkinson appears to be adjusting the temperature control charms. A hot beverage is always welcome when cramps are at their worst.

“It’s come to this.” Marietta’s tone is commiserating, not questioning—an observation of the dismal facts.

“Hm?” Parkinson asks. She doesn’t even look at Marietta. Doesn’t stop whatever casting she’s doing, as if nothing could be of greater importance than keeping the food before her just right.

“Nice little show they’re putting on here. First they tell us we’ll be spending a third of the sessions listening to sob stories, and then they trot you out—”

“Excuse me?” Marietta has Parkinson’s attention now. But the bite in Parkinson’s tone takes Marietta aback.

“You know.” Marietta gestures around the room. “The Shacklebolt government is keen to curry favour with Hogwarts, with Potter’s inner circle, and with the Muggleloving faction.“

“Yeah. It’s almost as though they want to avoid another war over blood status.” Parkinson’s tone is dismissive. Marietta’s not quite sure how she intends her words to be taken.

“As if the new regime has any respect for blood status,” Marietta says in low voice.

“Look Edgecombe—it’s Edgecombe, isn’t it?” Parkinson asks, as though they hadn’t been separated by a single year at Hogwarts, as though the Edgecombes aren’t a respected pureblood family. “I might be laying out the tea, but just remember, the only difference between you and me, between your family and mine, is that your mummy got you a cushy Ministry job and Shacklebolt is a bleeding heart who thinks people deserve second chances. Don’t forget that, Edgecombe. You might be in the chair, and I might be serving lunch, but at the end of the day we’re in the same room.” 

Parkinson turns away from Marietta, who stands there, stunned, anger rising up inside her. What is Parkinson playing at? She can’t seriously be comparing herself with Marietta. The equivalency is so false it would be laughable if the situation weren’t so vile. Marietta’s mother is nothing like Parkinson’s parents. She never fought for He Who Must Not Be Named, and it’s unjust that she’s in Azkaban serving eighteen months with those who did, as though her years of service mean nothing, as though she’d ever done anything at the Ministry other than follow orders, do her job.

“If you’re not going to grab a sandwich or a coffee or something, can you scram?” Parkinson asks. “You’re holding people up.”

The realisation that she’s just standing about in front of her colleagues gets Marietta going. She glares at Parkinson and walks back to her seat, empty handed. She’ll be brown bagging it in the future.

 

Parkinson’s words are still ringing in Marietta’s ears as she swallows mouthfuls of scotch broth at the solitary table in her kitchen. 

She tries to drown them out with those of her mother. “Bad breeding will out,” her mother had often reminded Marietta when she complained about the holier-than-thou attitudes of the Slytherin pureblood contingent at Hogwarts. “We may not make the grade as far as they’re concerned, but remember, Marietta, manners cost nothing, and when they’re well placed and shared with the right people, they pay dividends. We may not be Sacred 28, but the Ministry is where the real power is, and there’s no shame in hard work.”

As usual, her mother was proved absolutely right. Marietta’s resolve strengthens. In a few months, her mother will be free again. And by that time Marietta will have put Voices Heard behind her and moved up from Ludicrous Patents to Gobstones, maybe even Quidditch. She knows it’ll take longer to get out of the Department of Magical Games and Sports and into a real department, like Transportation or International Magical Cooperation or Law Enforcement, especially with black marks unfairly tarnishing her name, but she’ll stick it out. She won’t be run out of the Ministry. It’s practically her birthright.

***

The next Voices Heard session is as painful as the first. More painful, actually, because the closer she gets to her period, the more ferocious her cramps become.

She spends the whole session with her arms crossed over her chest, as though creating a blockade to the messages the little DA reunion troupe is trying to disseminate. Instead of listening, Marietta spends the time mulling over the many ways in which Shacklebolt, Jordan, and Granger have wronged her and how utterly unfair it is that _she_ is the one forced to sit on the business end of _their_ sanctimonious lectures about right and wrong, about errors in judgement and the importance of amends. 

She’s angry with herself for absorbing any buzzwords at all, so she puts her mind to cataloguing of all the times that Cho had cooed over how _handsome_ and _funny_ Lee Jordan was, about how amusing it was when he called Quidditch matches, how hilarious the pranks he pulled with the Weasley twins were. It doesn’t make her feel good, mulling over years-old grievances, but it does fill her with a grim, gratifying feeling, at least for a few minutes. She’d been so right about Jordan; he’s a textbook goof—always clowning around. And here was the proof before her. Cho always had abominable taste in men. Marietta spares a though for Cedric. Maybe he hadn’t been the _worst_ , but she’d always failed to see why the girls in her dorm went gaga over him. And Potter? The very thought of him—Chosen One, rule flouter, bosom chum of Hermione Granger—makes Marietta want to spit.

***

The third session is the worst yet. Marietta knows it was coming, of course; they’d been briefed on the main purposes of the scheme before it began. This time, Granger and Finch-Fletchley have the stage, and they treat the audience to speeches about their respective experiences of the war. Marietta has reasonable success ignoring Granger—her war story has been splashed across the papers for a year: on the run from the Muggleborn Registration Commission, roughing it with Potter. Marietta’s attention is unwittingly captured, though, when Granger begins to speak of the days before the war, of her time at Hogwarts. She complains of prejudice, of bullying because of her blood status. Marietta thinks it more likely that any bullying Granger faced was thanks to her parading her smarts and marks around like badges. Ravenclaws were smart too, but they were at least dignified about it. Not like Granger, intent on showing off her famous friends and top marks and superior skills.

Marietta is about to dive once more into the weeds of her grievances, but her attention is unwittingly piqued when Granger says, “These were my experiences. Of course, just because I am Muggleborn and fought against Voldemort doesn’t mean I proud of everything I did during the war, or even at school. A big part of Voices Heard is facing up to our own mistakes, admitting the things we did that we’re not proud of, no matter how much we felt like we had no other choice at the time. 

“On the run I stole, I used Polyjuice potion without the consent of those whose bodies I wore, and I was party to breaking into Gringotts. The Imperius Curse was cast there, and the break in has caused a lot of fallout for wizard-Goblin relations that the Ministry and the magical public now have to deal with. And at school… Anyone here who was at Hogwarts with Harry, Ron, and me knows that rules got broken. I’m more sorry for the times I hurt people and never faced consequences. But Voices Heard advocates making amends to those we’ve hurt. We can’t just sweep things under the rug, or it could end up just like last time.“

Granger goes on, but Marietta doesn’t hear anything else. How dare Granger stand up there and follow up her sob story with this? She’s spent three days nodding sagely to everything Jordan has said about truth and making amends, and now this? Where is Marietta’s apology? Where are Grangers amends for disfiguring her?

Marietta touches her forehead. She knows each bump by heart, even covered as they are by a glamour.

On the stage, Finch-Fletchley starts saying something about the cost of fleeing with his family to Greece, but he might as well be behind a _Silencio_ for all Marietta hears.

***

Marietta’s still not done seething about Granger’s words by the next session, but this time Granger says nothing. Instead the captive audience is subjected to a Muggle Studies lesson, and Marietta finds herself forced to pay attention because the teacher, Mr Smoot, opened by announcing he would be assigning—to a hall full of adults—homework. At the collective groan he assured the group that the work would not be graded and was all to be completed during their hours on the clock, that the Ministry was investing in the re-education of its employees to show its commitment to building a magical society that works for everyone.

It’s a joke. This whole thing. There is a government to run, and the Ministry has them writing essays? She just wants to get through this, to get back to work—real work. And if she can just get through these three months, play their game, she’ll be able to do just that—to do what she came here to do, get down to business and show her mother and everyone else that she is Madam Edgecombe’s daughter. She’ll make herself indispensable, work her way to a department head position, have her own staff. Make her mother proud.

Marietta rues that it will take longer than she’d planned—she’ll have to work twice as hard to force them to admit that she’s half as good. It’s a depressing thought. But it’s not all bad; when she gets melancholy it usually means her period will start soon, and as soon as that’s over she’ll at least get a week of respite before her cycle starts up again.

Even while she internally denigrates Voices Heard for encroaching on even more of her time, Marietta is outlining the assigned essay. Smoot may have said he’s not grading these, but Marietta’s not risking her career over it. She needs them to think they’ve reeducated her. And she’s written enough ‘O’ papers in her time to know how to support an argument she doesn’t really buy into. 

The room begins to bustle and Marietta realises that the lunch break has arrived. She has no appetite. She has only resolve.

***

Back to her desk, Marietta writes some (well argued) nonsense about the historical origins of blood supremacy. Marietta is uncompelled by Smoot’s assertions that historical evidence indicates that blood-status persecution in the magical world actually has origins in medieval Muggle society, but she repeats it back to him anyway. Once she’s wrapped that up and denied a stack of Ludicrous Patents applications, Marietta heads for the fireplaces in the Atrium. Her right wrist has a cramp and her neck and shoulders are tight. She feels equal parts bloated and hungry. She just wants to get home and soak in the tub. With a cake.

In the Atrium, Marietta looks around for the shortest Floo queue. She’s about to head for one at the far end of the hall when she hears her name and stops in her tracks. 

“Alright there, Edgecomb?” Parkinson is over where the Statue of Magical Brethren used to stand. “Looked like you were really taking things to heart today.” She has the gall to smirk at Marietta as she says it, as though she knows exactly what Marietta thinks of Voices Heard. Well, Marietta supposes, Parkinson must be able to relate. Marietta walks over so they they can speak without being overheard by everyone heading home for supper.

“Fudge’s Ministry may have pandered to Mugglelovers here and there, when it was politically prudent,” Marietta says. “But Shacklebolt has brought things to an all-time low. I can only imagine how much the Ministry is spending on this rubb—“

“Excuse you,” Pansy interrupts. “The department heads unanimously agreed that this programme is worthwhile. But I suppose you think you know better?”

“Department Heads appointed by Shacklebolt,” Marietta counters. “And I do, as a matter of fact. I was practically raised at the Ministry, and it used to be a proud institution that put maintaining order and magical tradition above indulging each passing whim of the public.”

Pansy Parkinson laughs in her face. Marietta feels her ears go red to match her rising temper.

“Oh, I forgot. Fudge was so well known for his lack of concern with public opinion.”

“Since when do you defend Mugglelovers, anyway?” Marietta demands, dropping her voice to a whisper. One can’t be too careful. “What are you even doing here?”

“Since when do Ravenclaws think they’re above learning?”

“You can’t seriously call this learning? I don’t need to learn this rubbish. I didn’t raise a wand for You-Know-Who.”

“No, you just pushed paper for him.”

“Look who’s talking—at least my mother’s not a marked Death Eater!” Marietta would dearly like to scream in Parkinson’s face, but she keeps her volume under control. “How can you be so hypocritical?”

“Changing my mind isn’t hypocritical. Maybe if you didn’t think you were so grand you’d—“

“What, change my mind, too? And it’s a bit rich, you calling me grand, don’t you think? I seem to recall you sauntering around Hogwarts like you owned it just because you’re Sacred 28.” Marietta tries to reign things in. She and Parkinson should be natural allies here, in the belly of the beast. “Look, Parkinson, I know why you’re doing this, and I get it. I’m just trying to get through it all too. Ministers come and go, and I plain to keep my head down until this one goes and we get another one who values generations of loyalty and commitment to the Ministry.”

“I thought you were a blameless little bureaucrat?” Parkinson says, saturating the word “blameless” with irony.

Marietta thinks about the people running the Ministry now. “You know as well as I do that loads of people in influential positions now are Order people, or their lackeys. Shacklebolt knows—” She falters, embarrassment flaring up inside her; it’s soon overpowered by indignation about the modification of her memory. “He knows I told Umbridge about the DA. And he’s not the only one. Dawlish… They hate me around here. I know they’re all hoping I’ll quit, or better yet, give them a reason to fire me. Well I won’t.”

“Edgecombe, I’m going to give you some free advice. You think you’ve got some cross to bear, but let me tell you something, what you have is nothing. So you ratted on Potter and his pals. We both tried to sell Potter out, Edgecombe. But I did it publicly—in front of room full of people who’ve gone on to receive Orders of Merlin First Class. And I use to make fun of ‘Mugglelovers’ too,” Parkinson puts air quotes around the word, as though distancing herself from it. “And Muggleborns. I thought my blood made me special and using slurs made me cool. But I know your type too—you think all the things I used to think, only you keep your mouth shut when it suits you. My parents used to complain about people like you and your family—no conviction, they said. Well here’s a thought, Edgecombe: why don’t you consider some new ideas and see if your conscience gets convicted about them.”

***

In the bath that night, Marietta longs for the days before Voices Heard when she didn’t spend most of her leisure hours occupied with thoughts of people from her school days. It’s not that she thought she’d leave everyone from Hogwarts behind when she entered the Ministry—the community is far too small for that. But she hadn’t counted on being kept up thinking about whether Parkinson’s bold manner reminds her more of the swipe of a blade or the crack of a whip.

Both metaphors suck. Parkinson is as blunt and graceless as a Beater’s bat.

Still, Marietta can’t get her out of her head. Parkinson’s manner could not be more different from Marietta’s. Her mother had raised her to go decisively, quietly along the grain; to comply, not to ask too many questions; to make herself indispensable without calling attention to herself, and thus establish herself inexorably within the workings of things—an essential, irremovable component. Then at school, Marietta had met Cho, who wasn’t like that at all. Cho had burst onto the Hogwarts Express chattering about Quidditch and the drummer from the Weird Sisters and whether Potions or Transfigurations would be harder. Her open manner, so foreign to Marietta, had drawn her in, just as Pansy’s is captivating her now.

Marietta wrinkles her nose. She and Cho haven’t spoken since Hogwarts, but she doesn’t like to colour her erstwhile best friend with the same brush as Parkinson—an unknown quantity. Even if Cho had shown terrible judgement where boys were concerned, she was fundamentally kind and utterly loyal. Parkinson is neither. She’s bold as brass and altogether too big for her boots, which is not an attractive combination. Or, it shouldn’t be. Really, Marietta ought just to stop thinking about her entirely. 

Marietta swishes her arms about, half in, half out of the water. She likes the tickling feeling the water line on her skin as she moves her arms slowly. She thinks about having a wank, but decides against in. She hates the feeling of putting anything inside herself. Her dorm mates, on evenings when they’d stayed up late and taken turns sipping sherry purloined from Trelawny’s stash, had insisted it felt great. It doesn’t feel great. It hurts. Still, she finds it hard to get off without stimulation inside and out—and it’s just too much effort and discomfort for too little reward right now.

Taking a deep breath and closing her eyes, Marietta pulls her head under the water, submerging her face and her hair. She stays underneath until her lungs hurt and she needs air.

***

Marietta wakes up feeling like her lower abdomen’s been trampled by a herd of Hippogriffs. She’s not alarmed, but she’s disappointed. Every month she’s disappointed; it’s like her body has let her down. Sometimes, in that magnificent week after her period ends when Marietta has no cramps, no migraines, no pain, she lets herself forget about how bad her cramps can be. They’ve gotten worse as she’s gotten older, but she’s always shut up and put up with it. She’s always managed to muddle through. And so she will today.

Marietta forces herself out of the warm comfort of her bed. Her flat isn’t freezing by any means, but it’s not as cosy as her blankets, still warm from her body, and the shift from toasty warm to room temperature makes her pelvis cramp up anew. 

Marietta heads towards her dresser, shoulders hunched forward, one hand just above her pelvis. It’s a well worn posture—whenever her cramps are at their worst, her body seems to move naturally into the foetal position, to conserve heat, to ease the discomfort. It helps. 

Well, it helps a little. 

Marietta uses the loo and casts an Industrial strength Barrier Charm to check the heavy flow of blood. Should hold up for a few hours. She winces as it settles into place under her cervix. It always adds an unpleasant feeling of pressure to the mix. 

Marietta gets dressed and briefly considers having a bowl of cereal before dismissing the idea. She doesn’t want anything cold just now—better to wait until she gets to the Ministry; the coffee may be substandard, but it’s hot and bottomless.

***

Fortified with a cup (or six) of coffee, Marietta is feeling even more wired than usual in the conference room. She finds a seat and wishes it weren’t utterly indecorous to put her feet up on the chair so she could hug her knees to her chest. 

Today she doesn’t even need to try to tune out the guff from the stage. She’s busy maintaining. At lunch, she gets up from her chair, keen to grab a bite to eat and another coffee to see her through the second half.

“Edgecombe,” a barely audible whispers as she spells coffee from the carafe into a chipped enamel mug embossed with ‘M.O.M.’ Before she can answer, it comes again: “Pst, Edgecombe.”

“What?” Marietta snaps, looking up to find out to whom the voice belongs.

“No need to get snippy,” Parkinson says, sounding more like herself. “I just—look, you should go to the loo.”

“Excuse me?” Marietta doesn’t know what game Parkinson is playing now, but she can’t be bothered to play along. 

“It’s just—“ Parkinson looks around them conspiratorially, “—you’ve got some blood on your robes.” 

Marietta feels a shock of adrenaline and looks down her front, towards her crotch. 

“It’s at the back,” Parkinson informs her. Reflexively, Marietta tries to look over her shoulder and down her back to her bum. It’s no use.

“If you’re having me on, Parkinson.”

“I wouldn’t joke about this. What am I, twelve? I’d just—I’d want to know.”

Marietta heads for the loo, trying to cover her as much of her bum as she can with what she hopes are nonchalantly clasped hands. Most of her colleagues seem to be more focussed on getting lunch than on her backside, fortunately.

In a cubicle in the loo, Marietta pulls off her yellow robe and hangs them on the back of the cubicle door. She sees for herself that Parkinson wasn’t lying. There’s a blotch of blood staining it the size of a sickle, and her pants are a lost cause. She can’t believe she hadn’t noticed, but she’d been so distracted trying to stop herself cringing with each fresh wave of cramping. And she always gets pretty sweaty during her period—a little moisture isn’t unusual. She cramps up again so severely that she has to sit on the toilette to ride it out. At least, she thinks, she’s in the right place at the right time. From her spot on the toilet, Marietta pulls her wand from her robe pocket and removes the Barrier Charm that should be keeping her bleeding at bay; she’d renewed it before leaving the Voices Heard session, but it’s clearly failed. Still, it must have been working somewhat—a swell of blood that had been building up behind it pours from her vagina. She casts a new Barrier. 

Still naked from the waist down on her cold porcelain seat, Marietta shivers and sets about Banishing her pants and trying to _Scourgify_ the stains from her work robes.

After the third only partially efficacious _Scourgify_ , Marietta hears steps on the floor. And, after a moment, her name is whispered again.

“Edgecombe? Are you in here?”

“Mind your own business, Parkinson,” Marietta pleads through the door. 

More footsteps. “Are you okay in there? Is there, uh, anything I can do?” Parkinson’s voice sounds like it’s right on the other side of the cubicle this time. 

“I’m—hmmph,” Marietta’s dismissal comes out as a muffled groan as a new cramp seizes what feels like everything between her bellybutton and her public bone. This time, Marietta feels a warm tickle on her thigh—the slow, unmistakable trickle of blood . But it can’t be, she’s _just_ cast a fresh Barrier Charm.

“Edgecombe, should I get someone?” Parkinson’s voice sounds worried.

“No. No, I’m fine. Please, just go.”

“Look, Edgecombe, is there someone else I can get for you? A co-worker? I think Granger knows a bit about Healing—shocker, I know—”

“No!” Marietta calls. “Not Granger. It’s nothing; I’m just having a heavy period.”

“Well then what’s the matter? You can’t have forgotten the incantation for—“

“Of course I haven’t!” The very idea. “It just doesn’t seem to be working for some reason. I keep…”

“Keep what?”

“Will you please just leave?”

“Keep what, Edgecombe?”

Marietta blows an impatient breath out her nostrils. “I keep bleeding through it.”

“Bleeding through it?” Parkinson asks, sounding confused. “You need a Healer.”

“Don’t be a drama queen.” Honestly, a Healer? For a bit of menstrual blood?”

“You’re bleeding so heavily you can’t leave the toilet and you think a Healer is a bad suggestion? Maeve’s menzies, I thought Ravenclaws were supposed to be reasonable.”

“Please just go.” This time there is no bite in the entreaty. Marietta just wants to get through this. 

“Leaving a bleeding colleague alone in a toilet is definitely bad form.” Parkinson’s tone suggests she’s repeating etiquette lessons learned by rote.

“We’re not colleagues!” Marietta insists.

“Actually, we are. I’m a temporary employee of the Ministry as long as Voices—“

“Oh, please shut up. This isn’t helping.”

“So you want my help now?”

“If I let you help me, will you shut up?”

“No deal,” Parkinson says, as if they’ve made any deal at all. “Now open the door or I’ll do it.”

“I need a minute,” Marietta says, refusing to admit defeat aloud. She pulls her robes over her head before flushing the toilet and leaving the cubicle.

“I couldn’t get the stains out,” she says sheepishly, back firmly to the outside of the cubicle door. She feels another soft tickle on her leg and winces. She doesn’t know how this could be worse. “And the Barrier Charm still isn’t catching everything.”

“Okay.” Parkinson nods her head and pulls her lips into a tight line. “We’re going to St Mungos. No arguing.”

Parkinson spells Marietta’s robe black so that the blood doesn’t show. Then Marietta ducks back into the cubicle to get some loo roll for the time being. They walk together to the Atrium. Marietta steps into the Floo and calls out “St Mungos.” She steps out on the other end and doesn’t wait for Parkinson before walking—gait oddly affected from the pain and the wad of loo roll—to the reception desk. She hears the whoosh of Parkinson following her through.

“I need to see a Healer,” Marietta whispers to the wizard behind the desk.

“What bring you in today?” The wizard asks, as though Marietta is here for fun.

“I can’t stop bleeding.”

The wizard looks Marietta up and down—at least her top half, the half he can see form behind the desk—as though expecting to see blood gushing from her face or her chest or her shoulders. “You can’t see it.” Marietta is mortified. “It’s—” a breath escapes her, as though she’s beginning to cry. But she can’t right now. First, she’ll get help. She can cry later. “It’s my period.”

The wizard looks surprised and bashful at that, but takes Marietta’s details and asks her to take a seat.

“I thought this was the preeminent hospital in London?” It’s Parkinson’s voice, volume mercifully low. “She just told you she’s having a catastrophic period and you’re asking her to take a seat in a room full of people?”

The wizard gapes at Parkinson.

Marietta clutches the edge of the desk, white knuckled. Anxiety is starting to rise up in her—she’s been maintaining all day but now she’s losing her careful composure. 

“Well? Come on!” Parkinson is speaking quietly—discreetly, really—but her tone is full of authority and remonstrance. “Put her in a room and get a Healer!”

“That’s not protocol—“

The bureaucrat in Marietta empathises with him even as she wishes he would follow Pansy’s instructions.

“You’d prefer she gets menstrual blood all over—“

“Parkinson, please!” Marietta admonishes, humiliated. The wizard, for his part, seems to have been galvanised by the mention of menstruation. He looks down at his desk for a moment before speaking to Parkinson. “Go to…” he peters off, reading over the floor plan that’s posted at the reception, “the second floor?” He seems uncertain about how menstrual complications should be categorised. “Room 9.”

Neither Marietta nor Parkinson thank him before scarpering. 

Seated in an exam room, Marietta assures Parkinson that she’ll be perfectly fine and finally convinces her to leave. The woman is persistent. After a terse “thank you,” though, Marietta reminds Parkinson that her total lack of Healer training will be of no use now. “And I thought Voices Heard is _so_ important to you. You should get back—it’s not over yet.”

“Lunch is,” Parkinson counters, but Marietta can tell she’s won. “If you’re sure—“

“Yes, Parkinson. Please go. I appreciate you helping me out, but I’m here now. There’s nothing else you can do.” 

Parkinson nods. She doesn’t move for a moment, but then she nods again and takes her leave.

Marietta sits in the room for a few minutes. She gets up, finds the loo, grabs some fresh loo roll, heads back to room 9, and waits some more.

She’s not sure how much time has passed when a polite knock sounds from the door. Before she can answer, someone is coming in. Green robes. A Healer—finally.

“I’m Healer Davies,” she introduces herself. “I understand you’re having some bleeding?”

Marietta explains the bleeding to the Healer, who looks a bit taken aback, but just keeps asking Marietta questions. Marietta answers everything. Considering the situation, she wishes the Healer would hurry up about it. Finally, she tells Marietta she needs to cast a series of diagnostic spells. Marietta nods her consent, and Healer Davies waves her wand around, narrating her actions all the while. 

“These are standard diagnostic spells. Should show us if you have a case of Gushing Grippe or Sangue Sweats—any of the usual suspects. Not that those are terribly common, really.”

As she continues to cast, Healer Davies gets less and less talkative. She stops casting for a moment and taps the handle of her wand against her jaw. A crease forms between her eyebrows. She casts again. The crease deepens.

“Tell me, Marietta, do any of the women on the Muggle side of your family suffer from any chronic illnesses of the sexual organs?”

Marietta’s spine stiffens. She cannot believe the Healer’s nerve. “I haven’t got any Muggle relatives. Both of my parents are purebloods.”

“Ah,” a pitying half smile forms on Healer Davies’s face. “I hate to be contradictory, but, you see, I’ve just run a number of tests on you—everything considered standard for your complaint. I couldn’t find anything amiss. At the end there, I cast a _Revelio_ charm to reveal anything out of place. I detected a mass on your right ovary.”

“Is that’s what causing this? What does this have to do with my family?” Marietta asks, coldly.

Healer Davies’s eyes flit away from Marietta for a moment, but she brings them back. “Well, you see, this kind of mass is not consistent with magical pathologies.”

“What does that mean, exactly?”

“Either you have an unknown magical illness, or the origin of your ailment is Muggle.”

“What? You mean a Muggle did this?” Marietta feels disoriented. Marietta has no inherent trust for Muggles, but she can’t think when she would have been in a position for one to do her harm. Then again, she doesn’t know much about Muggle—

“No, Ms Edgecombe. It means you lack magical immunity to certain illnesses. We see this from time to time in those who weren’t nursed by a witch or raised in a magical environment. Magic has its own set of diseases, of course, but it also provides a fair amount of protection against certain things, particularly things growing where they oughtn’t.”

Marietta thinks of the people in the waiting room, or even in the Department of Mysteries, she thinks of her own face—magic causing antlers and extra arms and boils and spots...

“I cannot rule out right now that we aren’t in fact dealing with some heretofore unknown magical disease, but the probability of that is statistically negligible. It’s far more likely that we’d see a mass like this in a patient raised in a Muggle environment—in short, one with two Muggle parents.”


	2. The Secret

Marietta gets out of bed to send an owl to her boss in the Ludicrous Patents Office the following morning and then crawls right back under the covers. Through colds and cramps, flus and fevers, she hasn’t taken a day off since her mother got her a place in the Department of Magical Games and Sports. She wasn’t brought up to skive off her duties. It’s not the kind of thing she does. Then again, that was before she’d been to a Muggle hospital to get poked and prodded and abjectly humiliated. She can’t say for sure she knows _what_ kinds of things she does or does not do right now. 

She thinks of her mother, the woman who raised her on epithets about the importance of magical tradition, of the respect due to it, about the responsibility of pureblood families—of the Ministry—to protect them. Pureblood families, Marietta thinks, and scoffs, though no one is around to hear it but her. 

Nevermind knowing what she does or doesn’t do, she doesn’t even know who she _is_. 

Healer Davies told Marietta there was nothing she could do magically for a CMO—a condition of Muggle origin; because of the mass’s non-magical composition and corresponding unknown relationship to her ovary, they couldn’t Banish it without risking potential complications even worse than the symptoms Marietta’d been experiencing. The cherry on top had been receiving a dressing down for not coming to the Healer sooner. Marietta thinks back to Hogwarts—her dorm mates had all complained about PMS, cramps, migraines, feeling puffy and moody. She thought it was normal. She’d never ever considered seeing a Healer about it before yesterday.

Healer Davies said what Marietta needed was a Muggle Healer—a doctor, she’d said, something to do with a jumble of letters. Marietta hadn’t made a note of it, which is as unlike her as skipping work. Davies handed Marietta a piece of paper and sent her down downstairs, below the ground floor. Turns out she’d been pawned off on some liaison witch, who’s name Marietta isn’t sure she’d ever got. 

The witch had looked at the paper Marietta handed her, murmured something about ‘the bloody NHS,’ Summoned some phoney documents, and Side-Alonged Marietta to an Apparation point near the London Hospital. She marched Marietta up to a reception desk, and with a bit of subtle wand work and some falsified papers, got Marietta through the triage and into a new waiting room with all manner of medieval-looking instruments on the countertops and walls. With Marietta situated, it seemed, her job was done; she bid Marietta good day and went on her way.

And that was how, before Marietta—still reeling from the shock of Davies’s allegations about her blood status—was shunted off and made someone else's problem before she could gather herself enough to do so much as scoff at the idea of a Muggle hospital.

Marietta rolls over in bed and pulls her duvet more tightly around herself. She’ll have to get up sooner or later. Later, she decides, huffing like a petulant teenager. She begins to scold herself internally, but stops herself. Why shouldn’t she huff and puff and roll around in bed? she thinks, pardoning herself. If a nineteen-year-old woman isn’t entitled to be in a mood about this, she doesn’t know what could be considered mood worthy. Marietta wants more than anything to dismiss Healer Davies an incompetent, to refute what she’d said. But she doesn’t know how to argue with the facts that have been presented to her. 

She has no counter evidence right now. In point of fact, she has a whole pile of evidence in favour of the very theory she doesn’t even want to consider. She winces, recalling the tests the Muggle doctor had run. Marietta had been in too much shock to say “no” at the time. Though she’d been quickly brought back to herself when she realised that “imaging” meant sticking some electric wand into her privates. She’s said no then, that they’d have to make do without that particular test.

Marietta isn’t sure what use any of the tests were anyway; the doctor had still asked her seemingly endless, embarrassing questions: were Marietta’s periods always this painful? This heavy? Did it hurt to use the loo? What about sex? Did she use tampons or pads? Marietta, not knowing what a pad of a tampon was, avoided the last question but answered everything else in the affirmative with curt nods, eyes firmly on the floor. It was unspeakably shaming. The doctor said she most likely has something called endometriosis, and even thought it sounded like a stupid, Muggle word, Marietta had been unable to walk away, to close the door on a possible answer, on someone willing to collect data with her. Healer Davies had made it clear that Muggle medicine was outside the purview of St Mungo’s—that no one there had the expertise to help her. And then she’d shunted Marietta off without so much as a “good luck.”

She flops to her other side, keeping herself covered head to toe in white linen. She assures herself that she’ll rally. She’ll get up. She’ll get back to work. She’ll take charge of this situation. She’ll do her own research, find her own answers. She doesn’t need Muggle expertise—the very thought is laughable. But first, she’ll wallow—just for today. And maybe tomorrow. And Sunday. 

But Monday she’ll rally; she’ll wake up and do her job and then do what she does best: hit the books, find pertinent information, think laterally and make connections—she’ll find a differential diagnosis.

***

Saturday and Sunday are dedicated to brooding in a similar vein. Marietta gets out of bed to make hot chocolates and munch on hunks of bread she tears off of the loaf in the bread bin.

By Sunday, she’s working on an epic break-out. She doesn’t even care. It only serves to hide the permanent bumps on her forehead better. Thoughts of SNEAK get her dander up, and she relishes the feeling of rage about Granger after two and a half days of despair. Every time she thinks about her mother, she forces the thought away, and switches to more satisfying litanies against Davies and Granger and Shacklebolt. Fury induced by internal Granger abuse might feel satisfying right now, but Marietta can’t even entertain thinking about her mother. She’s pretty sure that if she does she’ll become incandescent with rage, and she honestly doesn’t know what she might do.

In any case, she can’t brood forever. She knows that what she needs instead is to keep her anger at a controllable level, a level that fuels her, that can keep her going. She needs to eat real meals, switch from mugs of hot, liquid sugar to strong, black tea, to get her hands on pertinent literature and arm herself with information.

So when Monday rolls around and her period has slowed to a trickle and the pains have subsided along with it, Marietta puts on her work robes and heads to the Ministry. When she arrives, Ryun and Hern quiz her about her absence on Friday, asking politely after her health. She brushes them off, telling them she was under the weather. 

She spends the day catching up on paperwork that had piled up in her absence and leaves at five o’clock sharp. She’s got a date with a steak and ale pie and a stack of books on anatomy.

***

Tuesday brings with it another contemptible sessions of Voice’s Heard. Before the session begins, Marietta adds her essay, which is a load of (well argued) claptrap to a growing stack on the stage. It feels like a thousand years since she wrote it, since she was sat at her desk, determined to do whatever it took to keep her job, to keep her Ministry career alive.

She takes her seat and commences tuning out whatever today brings.

After the session, Marietta’s teeth are on edge and the last thing she needs is to be waylaid by Parkinson. So, naturally, that’s exactly what happens.

“Hey Edgecombe, wait a minute,” Parkinson calls to Marietta on her way to the door. 

Marietta doesn’t want to turn around, doesn’t want to see Parkinson, to acknowledge her. She certainly doesn’t intend to let Parkinson grab her with a light tug on the arm, pulling them face to face. “How are you feeling? Are you okay?” Parkinson doesn’t release her grip on Marietta’s arm, but she has the decency to lower her voice. Behind them, Granger and Jordan and the others are still milling about. Granger casts she and Pansy a look and nudges Jordan, who looks over for a moment. Marietta looks back to Parkinson and reclaims her arm.

“Just fine, thank you.” Marietta answers. The last thing she wants to do is make a scene. She absolutely detests drawing attention to herself in public. Her way has always been to work away behind the scenes, quietly garnering attention from the right people for the right reasons. 

“Did the...” Parkinson pauses and bites her upper lip. “Maybe we should get of here.”

“We?” 

“Come on,” Parkinson says, as though they’ve agreed on going anywhere together. Marietta doesn’t want to go anywhere with Parkinson, but she’s worried Parkinson will force the issue if she doesn’t. If yesterday is anything to go by, the woman is relentless.

Marietta follows Parkinson out of the conference room and through the corridors to a lift. They wait a moment for a lift with a few Ministry workers in it to stop on their floor. “Where are we going?” Parkinson asks once they step inside, gesturing to the panel with buttons.

 _I was following_ you. Marietta doesn’t want the other occupants of the lift to think anything untoward is going on, so she presses the ‘7’ and when the lift drops them off, leads Parkinson down the empty hall, stopping outside the office in case her coworkers have already made it back. Parkinson looks at the door, but Marietta levels her with a stare and puts one hand on the door to hold it shut. “Well?” She demands.

“W-ell?” Parkinson repeats, drawing out the double u in mocking. “What happened at St Mungo’s?” she asks, as though it’s any of her business.

“Nosy Parker,” Marietta admonishes.

Parkinson shrugs. “Are you okay? What did the Healer say?”

Marietta’s head is suddenly swimming. _Not consistent with magical pathologies_.

“Edgecombe?”

 _The origins of your ailment are Muggle_.

Marietta drops her hand from the door, pulling her hand across her breasts instead to grip her other bicep, trying to brace herself.

 _Endometriosis_.

“Edgecombe?” Parkinson sounds a bit exasperated.

“Uh.” Marietta closes her eyes and gives her head a light shake.

“Edgecombe, are you alright?” The exasperation seems to giving way to concern.

“Yes,” Marietta lies. 

Parkinson snorts. “Right. I can see that.”

“What difference does it make to you?” Marietta looks Parkinson dead on, chin jutting out.

“Well, as you pointed out, I _am_ a Nosy Parker. Beyond that, I make it my business to check in on colleagues after they have to go to the hospital to have profuse bleeding seen to. Call it part of my self-rehabilitation.” One corner of Parkinson’s mouth turns up and her nose scrunches slightly.

“Well it’s not your business—it’s mine. So you can just drop it.”

Parkinson raises both of her hands in front of her, palms forward, and casts her eyes towards the ceiling, as though it is she—Parkinson—who is calling upon reserves of patience. 

“Look,” Marietta says, “it was… nice of you to help me get to St Mungo’s, but I took it from there. Everything’s under control.”

“Riiiiight.”

“What do I have to say to get you to drop it, Parkinson?”

“Anything.”

Marietta lets go of her own arms and balls her hands into fists at her sides. Why does Parkinson have to be so maddening?

“Anything that’s not bullshit, that is.”

Not bullshit, Marietta thinks. “It’s all bullshit, Parkinson.” She says, and she can hear a quiver in her voice. She hates the sounds of it. She hates knowing that there is absolutely nothing she can do to stop herself from dissolving into the sobs right here in her workplace. “All of it.”

***

According to Parkinson, there is an unwritten rule in high society that when you press a civil servant into sobbing themself hoarse in the hallowed halls of government, you have to apologise with a cappuccino, which is how Marietta finds herself sitting at a wee wooden table in Parkinson’s flat, which would most generously be described as “extremely quaint.” It is utterly at odds with the Parkinson who used to strut around Hogwarts with Draco Malfoy like she was entitled to everything, everywhere.

“So are you taking the Muggle pills?” Parkinson asks as she sets two steaming cups down on the table and takes the seat across from Marietta. “It’s instant,” she adds, pushing the cup across to Marietta.

“I thought that the upper classes were supposed to be tactful and polite.” Marietta observes, blowing across the top of her cup to cool the coffee. Her eyes roam around the small kitchen. It could use a lick of paint, but it’s as neat as could be.

“Pfft, who told you that? So are you, taking the pills, I mean?”

“No.”

“You’re not going to get the, the surgery-whats-it?!” Parkinson sounds nothing short of titillated.

“Of course not!”

“So what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. Keep reading—I’ve been going through some books on magical anatomy, and I have a hold on Mason’s Encyclopedia of Magical Medicine.”

“But I thought the Healer said—“

“I’m looking for a differential diagnosis.”

“Come again?”

“It means finding other conditions that fit my symptoms—magical conditions,” Marietta appends.

“So you’re just ignoring the bit where she said you were Muggleborn?” Pansy asks, casually, before taking a large sip—more of a gulp, really—from her cup.

Marietta shudders involuntarily. She doesn’t want to talk about this, but Parkinson doesn’t seem to have any respect or decorum whatsoever. Once upon a time, Marietta would have just stomped away and written her off. But she’s not exactly got a lot of people offering cappuccinos and sympathy these days, so she decides to fight _Incendio_ with _Incendio_. 

“How come you’re living in a flat like this?” Marietta inquires, infusing her last words with a level of superiority she feels is inversely proportional to the cracks in the plaster and the scratched parquet.

Parkinson answers immediately. “Most of the family gold has gone to reparations and my parents’ upkeep in Azkaban—mum’s out, but dad’s still there. My pay packet is fair but small, and I’ve got mother to support since she got out. Your turn.”

“My turn?”

“Oh, I thought we were doing _quid pro quo_?”

“What are you like?” Marietta laments into her tea cup. Over the rim and across the table, she sees Parkinson shrug.

“Do you really think the Healer is wrong?” Parkinson presses.

That’s an interesting question, in Marietta’s estimation. She doesn’t know what to think. On the one hand, Healer Davies is a trained expert, licensed by the Ministry of Magic to practice healing. Moreover, the the doctor had seemed to recognise the mass fairly easily as a “common enough chocolate cyst.” Marietta’s stomach rolls. What a repulsive name. 

On the other hand, Marietta had learned both sides of her family tree by rote as soon as she could talk. Her mother had taught it to her. Her mother—

“Well, do you?”

Marietta doesn’t know why she ever thought Parkinson’s boldness was intriguing. It’s crass, insensitive. “I—I can’t be sure. That’s why I’m researching—“

“What did your parents say?”

“My parents? Nothing. I haven’t spoken to my mother since before I went to St Mungos.” 

“I see. Because you’re so busy with your research, I suppose.” Marietta recalls her weekend spent sipping cocoa in bed and nibbling on bread self-pityingly and says nothing. “Well, here’s what you should do—“

“Oh,” Marietta rolls her eyes. “I suppose you’re going to teach me some crafty Slytherin shortcuts to data collection now?”

“No. We don’t cut corners. Besides, this has nothing to do with data. It’s obvious to anyone with an ounce of experience navigating family scandals that you need to ask your parents what is going on.”

“I had no idea Slytherins were such know-it-alls. Is that how it works in the upper crust, then? Level accusations at one another?”

“Hardly,” Parkinson scoffs. “We talk around subjects of any weight and gossip about our theories in vague terms to third parties.”

“How can you stand to live here?” Marietta asks, determined to wrong-foot Parkinson. 

“Rude,” Parkinson observes. 

“Here you are, in a flat the size of an Exploding Snap deck, joking about like life is normal. Like everything is fine! When nothing has been fine—nothing! My mother looks up to your family, to all the Sacred 28. And now…” And now, what? “My mother is In Azkaban and our family name is disgraced. Even if we were Sacred 28—even if the family name could bounce back—if Healer Davies is right… Well then the pureblood line has already ended with me.” Marietta stops, imagining her blood striking a line through the family name. 

“Oh, poor you.”

“How dare you—!”

“No, how dare you! Your mum’s doing eighteen months, Edgecombe! My father is never getting out—not ever. You think your name is tarnished? Mine is mud. What good is being a pureblood anyway? Especially now?”

“Is that your official question?” Marietta asks. 

“Look, Edgecombe, I don’t mean to be insensitive—“ Marietta nearly spits out the coffee in her mouth— “but by all credible accounts _you_ are Muggleborn. Have you heard anything Granger and Finch-Fletchley have been saying? The only difference between Muggleborns and purebloods besides upbringing is how people treat them. _You’re_ a Muggleborn, for fucks sake! And as far as I can tell the only things wrong with you are a cyst,” she speaks the word carefully, as if determined to prove that unfamiliar Muggle terms give her no pause, “and a bad attitude.”

“Well, this has been lovely.” Marietta pushes herself out of her chair with such force that her thighs hit the underside of the table on the way up and cause her cup to rattle about, undrunk coffee sloshing perilously close to the rim. “But, oddly enough, sitting about being insulted over a cappuccino isn’t my ideal Tuesday.”

“You know, if you stopped and listened now and again you might find that no one is insulting you. If you weren’t so defensive, you’d realise no one is attacking you.”

“Thanks for nothing, Parkinson,” Marietta says, pulling her wand from her sleeve to Apparate. 

She hears Parkinson sigh, and as she’s mid-turn, Parkinson calls out, “Talk to your mother, Edgecombe!”

***

Marietta is so wound up when she lands in her bedroom that she tosses her wand aggressively on the bed before throwing herself onto it as well, feet dangling off the end.

She shrieks into the blanket until her lungs are empty.

Eventually, she kicks her shoes off and climbs into the bed. She lays there until she starts to get chilly, thinking in circles. It’s beyond aggravating, but the idea of getting up is overwhelming. Strange though it seems to her now, raising the issue with her mother had not occurred to her. To do so would be to accuse her mother of lying to her her whole life, of misleading her, of misinforming her.

She rolls onto her back and stares up at the ceiling, suddenly overcome with the urge to face her mother, to ask: did you lie to me? The urge is powerful, but it’s at odds with a paralysing fear of what the answer might be. Marietta can’t recall ever being afraid of an answer before.

***

After a night of next to no sleep, of thinking in circles— _My mother wouldn’t lie to me. But what if? But she wouldn’t. BUT!_ —Marietta can’t stand it another moment. She’s never suffered from insomnia, not even before NEWTs; she’s simply buckled down, studied hard, and slept soundly knowing that she was doing everything right to prepare. She’s never before been kept up at night, tortured by uncertainty, thinking _what if…_

Sitting at her desk, staring blankly at the parchment before her, Marietta drops her quill and slams her palm down on top of it. She can’t stand it anymore. She’s hardly getting any work done. She’s had to correct at least a dozen sloppy mistakes in her paperwork already today and it’s not yet ten o’clock. And now there’s a black blotch where the Kerr’s signature should go thanks to her ludicrous outburst. She can’t let her work suffer just because she’s having personal issues. Before last Friday, she never let anything affect her work, and she’s always taken pride in that.

So… So she’ll just have to get a hold of herself and get through work. And then, well. Then, she’ll have to talk to her mother.

***

“Marietta,” her mother says, smiling. The Azkaban visiting area is grim, even without Dementors, but her mother looks genuinely pleased to see her. She pulls Marietta into a hug. “How are things in Games?”

“Running smoothly.”

“That’s my girl.”

“I’m glad you’re here, I missed you last week.”

Under the new regime, prisoners have visiting days and privacy rights. Marietta is glad that for once, their policies are working for her. Privacy protected behind a Muffliato, Marietta blurts out, “Am I adopted?” 

Her mother titters and takes a seat in one of the two mis-matched wooden chairs they’ve been given. “What kind of question is that?”

“I was at St Mungo’s on Thursday and—“

“Marietta! Are you alright?! What’s wrong? Did you see a Healer?”

Hearing her mother’s worried tones, after everything, viciousness overcomes Marietta. “The Healer performed some tests and determined that my symptoms are most likely caused by a disease ‘of Muggle origin.’ She said the most likely reason for it is that I have two Muggle parents.”

“Marietta, you can’t honestly think… you know that both sides of the family have been pureblood for generations. It’s an insult that my mother’s line wasn’t included in the Sacred 28—“

“Then how is it that I have something growing inside of me that a Muggle doctor wants to cut out?”

“A doctor? What do you mean? Cut what out? No one is cutting anything out of you. That’s Muggle barbarism!”

“Well the Healer can’t help me.”

“Help you with what, Marietta? What is going on?”

“Apparently I have something called a cyst on my right ovary. It causes a lot of pain during my period—“ Marietta is too worked up to feel embarrassed; she forges on, letting her rant pick up steam and carry her, “—and makes me bleed really heavily. That’s how I ended up at St Mungos. There was so much blood I couldn’t get a proper seal on the Barrier Charm.”

“Are you okay?!”

Marietta ignores her mother. “And the Healers can’t help with that, you see, as it’s a Muggle condition. So they sent me to a Muggle doctor who ran,” Marietta inhales stiffly, “tests and confirmed that the mass the Healer detected is a cyst. He said I can try taking some Muggle pills that might stop my period or else I can let them cut it out of me, but if I let them do that, it might grow back.”

“Marietta, I don’t understand—“

“Nor do I.”

Silence stretches between them. Marietta stares her mother in the face, but her mother is looking to her left at the grey wall.

“Am I adopted? Is that the real reason I never met my father? Is he even really dead?”

Marietta’s mother looks red in the face and like she might cry. “He…”

“He what?” Marietta pushes, feeling merciless.Her mother swallows. “He what, mother? This is my health—my life—we’re talking about.” Marietta doesn’t even feel guilty about the intimation. Her condition might not be lethal, but if that’s what it takes to get her mother talking, she doesn’t mind using a bit of vague language to get the job done.

Her mother’s face looks pallid. “He didn’t agree.”

“With what?”

Her mother exhales in a long stream. She grabs the tops of her knees, bracing herself, and looks down at her hands. “We tried for several years to get pregnant but couldn’t. The Healers said that we wouldn’t be able to, that there was something wrong with my— well they couldn’t put it right. Your father and I wanted a child so badly, but magical children don’t tend to be given up for adoption. The community is so small already. Your father wanted us to consider adopting a Muggle child, but I couldn’t face the idea of everyone thinking we’d had a squib. So he said we should learn to be happy with just the two of us.”

“Then what?”

“Well, I couldn’t live with it. I’d been waiting my whole life to have a child—you nan always taught me the importance of family, of preserving magical traditions for posterity, passing them down through our own lines, making the family name greater with each generation.”

“Is that how you think of me? Just one more branch on the family tree?”

“Of course not! I wanted you, desperately. But it was very difficult to find a magical baby to adopt—children possessed of magic don’t present it until later on. There are people in the Ministry, though, who deal with Muggleborns when they are noticed. So when we received a Floo call that there might be a child for us to adopt, you can’t imagine how hopeful I was.” Her mother’s voice sounds hoarse, and her eyes are shining. “They took us to meet you. Your— your birth parents… they were terrified when you started gathering the words right out of books; they couldn’t understand what was happening, how you’d end up with fistfuls of words, how your books ended up with half-blank pages.”

“Books?” That struck Marietta as odd. “How old was I?”

“Seven,” her mother whispered. “We’d always imagined a baby, but here you were, a child that could be ours. I knew we could make a good go of it. Your parents didn’t want you anymore. They had no idea that they were raising a superior being. They were scared, pathetic.” Her mother sounded repulsed. Marietta felt likewise. “But, of course, you had seven years of memories with them. I knew you couldn’t keep them. It was imperative that you think you were an Edgecombe, a pureblood. That you take your rightful place in the world.”

Horror struck at Marietta. Her mind carried her back to Shacklebolt’s office, where she’d been told her memory had been modified. She’d felt so violated, victimised for the so-called greater good.

“You Obliviated me.”

“I didn’t, and your father didn’t want to. He was utterly opposed to it—wouldn’t hear reason. Ministry approved Obliviators did it. They removed your memories of your Muggle family and replaced them with new ones, built from those I had of my own childhood. Since you were still young, they only had to create a couple of years’ worth. They wove new memories—a few beach holidays, spending time with nan, tutoring. Then we took you home and started making real memories, and those cemented the ones the Obliviators gave you—at least, that’s what they said.”

Marietta’s mother seemed to have said her piece. Her shoulders sagged forward and she clutched her own knees to support herself. 

“What happened to my dad?” Marietta asked quietly.

“He didn’t want to be involved—said it wasn’t right to modify your memory.”

“Well he was right! Why did you do, just run off with me?”

“The adoption was perfectly legal,” her mother says, as though that makes it okay. “The Muggles were afraid of you and I still wanted you. Your dad left but promised not to breathe a word. I took a job with the Ministry and moved us to Bangor, to a town where no one knew us. Your dad moved somewhere else. I’m not sure where.”

“You lied to me!” Marietta cries.

“Marietta, I’m sorry!” Her mother looks up at her her, and reaches out to grab her arm. Marietta pulls it out of reach. “I never planned for you to find out. I never planned for anyone to find out. And I never imagined that you might have trouble with your— well… I hadn’t thought about it, but of course there must be something they can do at St Mungos.”

“There isn’t.” Marietta feels suddenly defiant and mulish. 

“There must be. I refuse to believe that Muggle medicine has a better cure for… this than magic can offer.”

“Well think again. The Healer at St Mungos shunted me out of there like any other Muggle.”

Her mother cringes. “You’re not a Muggle! You’re my daughter and—“

“Who are you trying to fool?” Marietta demands. “You can’t change the facts to suit yourself. You took me from Muggles. Two years of false memories and seven years of lost ones doesn’t change that.” Marietta is overcome with the urge to hurt her mother. She wants to grab her, to scratch her, to pull her hair. She takes a deep breath to steady herself but the urge isn’t gone. “The doctor said this could affect my ability to have children,” she says, flippantly. “That it adversely impacts fertility. It—“

“What?” In an instant, Marietta’s mother is fully upright—spine as straight as wand, eyes alert, boring into Marietta’s. She looks ready to take charge. 

But she is not in charge. For the first time in her life, Marietta isn’t willing to leave things to someone more powerful. This is her body, her life, her choice. It’s terrifying, but galvanising. In the face of everything she knows going up in smoke, all she is left with is herself. Sure, she doesn’t know who she is anymore, but that doesn’t mean she can’t find out.

“What about marriage? What about the family? You can’t be infertile.” 

“Well I might be.” Marietta says, matter of factly. “And it doesn’t matter anyway,” she adds before she stands up, ready to make a hasty exit. “I’m gay.”


	3. Quid Pro Quo

Marietta Apparates to Diagon Alley, because can’t stand the idea of being cooped up in her apartment. After confronting her mother, she has no urge to take to bed. She needs to move. She walks briskly out of the Leaky Cauldron and quickly looks left down the Muggle street, then right. Since her right ovary is the cause of all this trouble, she heads left. 

She walks down the street, glad that it’s a dry evening. As she beats the streets, she considers her options. If she were a normal nineteen-year-old, she’d go to a friend’s place and share her woes—complain about her mother. That’s what teenagers are supposed to do; it had certainly been how the other girls had occupied their time at Hogwarts. Marietta had rarely joined in. She didn’t usually have anything to complain about. Marietta’s mother hadn’t forbidden her to date, or to wear cut off tops or mini skirts or other Muggle clothes; hadn’t refused to give her gold to buy cosmetics. Of course, that was all because Marietta had never been interested in any of those things anyway. Her mother thought them frivolous, and she’d readily agreed. Marietta thinks about her earliest memories, woven from her mother’s, and wonders where her mother ends and she begins. She’ll think about that later.

The problem facing Marietta right now is one she’s been avoiding thinking about since she left Hogwarts, so it’s high time she bumped it up her list of priorities. The problem? She has no friends.

She thought she had, at school. After SNEAK, Cho had taken her side against Potter. They’d remained friends, but once they’d graduated, without exams and school gossip and the forced proximity of a dorm keeping them together, they’d drifted a bit. And as the war had picked up, Cho had made it clear on the occasions when they did see one another where she stood with regards to He Who Must Not Be Named. She hadn’t appreciated Marietta’s reticence or her continued work at the Thicknesse Ministry, supporting a government that wanted to round up Muggleborns. 

Since she’s being brutally honest with herself, she acknowledges that she never really had any friends apart from Cho anyhow. In the first place, Cho had been her best friend for seven years. But more than that, all of their mutual friends had been Cho’s friends, really. Cho was far more sociable than Marietta, more likeable, to be frank about it. Cho knew how to talk to people, how to open up to them; she saw everyone as inherently valuable and worth standing up for. She’d stood up for Marietta against Potter, and when the time came, she stood up to Marietta on behalf of strangers. 

Knowing what she knows now, it all seems like a joke. 

And, of course, she’d never had friends her own age before Hogwarts. Now she knows why: her mother had displaced them to cover up Marietta’s origins. And after they were situated in Wales, well… Marietta thinks back on mornings where her mother left for work before breakfast and came home after supper, knackered and wanting nothing more than a little quiet. She’d kept Marietta well stocked in books and they’d shared the house in peace and quiet. Marietta always admired her mother’s work ethic, how she put the job before everything. She didn’t want to disturb her—she knew her work was important. But looking back, she can see that all the evenings spent in the office, all the weekend overtime, had its cost: her mother hadn’t cultivated friends, Marietta realises, just work allies. And that’s what she’d taught Marietta. 

Marietta stops outside a shoe store. It’s closed. She stares at her reflection in the glass and thinks of who on earth she could go to with her troubles.

She can only think of one person, and there’s no way she’s seeking refuge at Parkinson’s. She might be friendless, she might have a black mark on her employment record for complicity, she might have a chocolate cyst and potentially childless future, she might be a bloody Muggleborn, but she’s still got her pride. She can’t show up on Parkinson’s stoop looking and demand another instant cappuccino. Can she?

She Apparates home.

***

After a poor night’s sleep, something which is becoming more common than Marietta would like, Marietta dawdles about in bed.

She should be at work. But she’s not. She doesn’t even send in an owl feigning illness or requesting a personal day. She doesn’t know why she doesn’t go in; all she’s doing is lying in bed, listening to the noise of the street outside. She’s not doing a damn thing. And yet, somehow, for the first time in her life, she doesn’t care. She doesn’t force herself to get up, to soldier on. All the restless energy of last night is gone. She just lies there. 

After a while—she’s not sure how long, but it’s still light out—a knock comes at the door. Marietta stiffens—it’s rare for anyone to knock at her door. She ignores it, but another knock comes, louder this time. Marietta furrows her brow, snatches her wand from her nightstand and heads for the door. If it’s someone waffling on about the stupid Muggle council again, she’s going to slam the door in their face.

She opens the door to find Pansy Parkinson on her doorstep. She still thinks slamming is a good option.

“What are you doing here? How did you even get my address?”

“You missed Voices Heard today,” Pansy responds, as though it’s in any way an answer. She adds, “You weren’t at work,” as an afterthought.

“And what are you, my truancy officer?”

“Looks that way. Are you going to invite me in or not?”

“I think not,” Marietta declines, just to be cheeky. It feels gratifying.

“Rude. If you were Sacred 28 you’d know that going berserk in someone’s kitchenette should always be followed up by an offer of tea and biscuits.”

“Biscuits?” Marietta can’t believe her gall.

“Jammie Dodgers, for preference.”

“What on earth are—“

“Oh, never mind. Any biscuit will do. But now that you’re a Muggleborn you really should make an effort to learn about the richest and most important aspects of your culture. That’s a Ravenclaw enterprise, isn’t it?”

“And the richest and most important aspect of Muggle culture is biscuits, huh?” 

Pansy shrugs and the gesture makes Marietta want to grab her by her affectedly unaffected shoulders and shake her. In a flirty way. “That and Robyn,” Parkinson says sagely.

“Who’s Robyn?” Marietta asks even though it’s probably pointless. 

“Oh, Edgecombe. You haven’t lived until you’ve sobbed to a Robyn song. I promise it’s better than sobbing at work. Finch-Fletchley got me into her.”

“So you’re friends with Finch-Fletchley now?”

“Finch-Fletchley’s cool. He gets it—his parents are UKIP voters, but they pretend to be Tories,” Parkinson says, gravely.

“I have no idea what any of that means.” 

“It means he gets what it’s like to face the fact that your parents are awful. Though I am having second thoughts about him; he doesn’t think I can pull off Robyn’s hairdo. Do you think blonde would suit me?”

Marietta thinks of her own hair—all she does with it is brush it—and her own wardrobe, filled with nothing but work robes and things that look like her mother’s picked them out. “I don’t really know anything about fashion.”

Parkinson sighs philosophically. “All things considered, I’m going to let that one go, but you really can’t set me up like that.”

“Just come in,” Marietta says, surrendering to the reality that this conversation is happening and moving aside to allow Parkinson to cross the threshold. “You’re letting in a draft.”

“Old building, is it? You know, for all the pitfalls of losing all our standing and money and assets, I have to say, a major upshot is not having to live in an eighteenth-century manor anymore. The drafts are unbelievable. And don’t even get me started on the damp. Is your kitchen this way?”

***

In the kitchen, Marietta spells the kettle to a boil and pours the piping hot water into a Brown Betty filled with Maven McAllister’s Marvelous Mint tea leaves.

“Soooo.” Parkinson seats herself at Marietta’s table without an invitation. “Why weren’t you at work?”

“Why are you here?”

“ _Quid pro quo_?” Parkinson asks.

“If you insist,” Marietta says in faux acquiescence.

“You’re the one who keeps answering my incisive questions with really dreary ones. I know I’m supposed to be unlearning my biases, but the middle classes really are dull.” She props her elbow up on the table and plunks her chin unto a cupped hand. “Don’t tell Granger I said that; I’m supposed to be reformed.”

“So it is all for show then? You working at Voices Heard? To appear reformed?”

“Are you sure you want that to be your question?”

Marietta nods.

“It’s not a show.”

“Then what is it?”

“Did you talk to your parents?”

“Argh,” Marietta lets out a noise of frustration. “Yes—my mother. It’s just the two of us. I asked her… about…” Marietta looks at the tea pot and waves her arm around, “everything.”

“And?”

“What is it, if it’s not a show?” Marietta deflects, taking her turn.

“I told you; I’m reformed.”

Marietta rolls her eyes. “Pull the other one.”

“What did your mother say?”

“Denied it, at first. But I told her the Muggles want to cut me open, and I think that shocked her into admitting she adopted me and tampered with my memory after I scared the daylights out of my birth parents with rogue magic.”

“Who knew you were interesting after all,” Parkinson says.

Something in Marietta’s chest feels sort of… sparkly, at Parkinson calling her interesting. She lets herself enjoy the feeling. “What is your deal with Voices Heard _really_ about?”

Parkinson huffs. “Is the tea ready?”

“Don’t be a bad sport.”

“Turnabout’s fair game, it’s true.” Parkinson huffs again and pulls a face. “I wasn’t shitting you when I said I’m reformed. Well, I’m not reformed, but I’m… I don’t know, trying to reform? Jordan would call it an ongoing journey of personal improvement. He reads a lot of Muggle books and goes to weekend seminars that have filled him with jargon.”

“You’re friends with all of them,” Marietta realises. “I never took you for one who’d abandon the old ways when the going got tough,” she remarks, pouring the tea into a couple of mugs. 

“Well I never took you for one to be in the centre of a riveting scandal, but here we are. And anyway, I can make friends. I’m great at it. I’m here, aren’t I?” Parkinson accepts the mug Marietta offers with a nod, “Thanks. What about the biscuits?”

Marietta digs some digestives out of the cupboard and shakes the box. Parkinson says they’ll do. Marietta reaches for a plate to lay them out. “Oh, fuck the box, Edgecombe. What happened after your mum admitted everything?”

For an instant Marietta is transported back to the Azkaban visitor’s room, to telling her she might be infertile, to relishing telling her in such an uncouth way that she’s gay, to making the first dramatic exit of her life, to claiming the last word. It’s horribly embarrassing, but also, she feels… she’s not sure, a little something—badass, maybe?—about it all. She hadn’t had an adolescence full of wailing about how unfair her mother was and how much she misunderstood Marietta. Now, Marietta wonders how much of that was because she was so preoccupied with following in her mother’s footsteps that she misunderstood herself.

“Well?” Parkinson asks, pulling a digestive from the foil sleeve and dipping it into her tea before popping the soggy bit into her mouth.

“I, uh— I told her I might be infertile,” Marietta says with a giggle.

“Bet she loved that,” Parkinson says, still chewing.

“Is that your next question?” Marietta asks.

“Hardly. Just imagining how my own dear mum would react to that kind of pronouncement.” A wide grin breaks out on Parkinson’s face. “Do go on.” Parkinson makes a gesture of motion with her biscuit. And to think, Marietta always thought that the upper classes had impeccable table manners.

“I told her I might be infertile,” Marietta repeats. “And she started having a conniption about the family line. So I told her it doesn’t matter anyway because I’m gay and stormed out.”

“You didn’t!” Parkinson lets out a gleeful shriek before throwing her head back in laughter and pounding her biscuit-free fist on the table. 

Marietta’s feels her cheeks heat up. She doesn’t know why she’s revealing any of this family business to Pansy Parkinson, of all people. It’s unquantifiable, but there’s something about Parkinson’s brusque manner that Marietta likes. It’s easy to be around; hard not to respond to.

“I did,” Marietta affirms with a giggle.

“How did you say it? Were you like: ‘mother, I’m a lesbian!’?” Parkinson punctuates her words by throwing her arms out to her side as though laying herself bare.

“Not quite. I just kind of said: ‘I’m gay’ and then scarpered.”

“I’ve got to hand it to you, Edgecombe,” Parkinson picks up her mug of tea and holds it just below her eye-line, “Coming out and storming out of a prison is an unparalleled fucking power-move.”

Parkinson lowers her mug and chinks it against Marietta’s. Marietta says “cheers” in acknowledgement and laughs. They both do. It’s nice. It makes some of the tension of the last week—the last horrible day—ease from her shoulders.

“Why are you on an ‘ongoing journey of personal improvement’?”

Parkinson stops laughing and makes a drawn-out _pffft_ noise, puffing her bottom lip out and she exhales. “So I went back to Hogwarts last year, right? I didn’t fancy my chances of finding a job with my fabulous credentials of zero NEWTS and two convicted parents. Anyway it fucking sucked. I don’t know how much you know about the Battle of Hogwarts, but I pretty much tried to hand Potter over to You-Know-Who because I thought it would save the rest of our skins. It won’t shock you to know that people didn’t take to kindly to that, and they weren’t going to let me forget it. There were other people who got flack for their part in the war—Blaise got labelled a coward for legging it to Italy with his mother when the going got tough. Theo got it bad because his dad’s a Death Eater too. I’m sure Draco would have preferred it to ten months in Azkaban, but school was no picnic, especially for the first few months. There was a lot of retaliation by students who’d lost people, or those who’d risked their lives.” Parkinson pauses to eat another biscuit.

“Anyway there were some incidents—I’ll spare you the details—and after that McGonagall decided that something needed to be done to clear the air. She put together a committee of NEWT students to propose ideas. Everything under the sun was suggested. You name it—resorting, unsorting, expelling students with Death Eater ties. We advocated for our right to stay in school—we aren’t Death Eaters, and besides, what about people like Blaise and Millicent, who were neutral? Where was the line in the sand? We thought for sure if they kicked out those of us with Death Eaters in the family, those students would just get it worse when we left.”

Marietta nods, interested. It’s been so long since she had a conversation like this—listened to a peer, someone her own age—Granger and Finch-Fletchley have talked about their experiences at school last year, of course, but they… well, Marietta hadn’t found them worth listening to.

“McGonagall wanted to rebuild, not clean house. She wanted a solution that would build bridges, and, fucking idealist, something that might ripple out into the community outside of Hogwarts. Granger came up with Voices Heard in the end. Well, she pitched the idea, anyway. I’m pretty sure she read about it somewhere first. She sold McGonagall on the idea that if we all shared our experiences with one another, if we were all put in a space to listen knowing we’d have our own chance to speak, that we might be able to walk a mile in each others’ shoes, so to speak. At first it was a disaster. Everyone thought their story was most important. Fights broke out, blame was laid. We didn’t have enough ground rules. McGonagall poached Jordan from the WWN—said between Potterwatch and getting a word in edgewise between the Weasley twins for eight years, he was an expert in communication.”

Marietta scoffs.

“She wasn’t wrong.” Parkinson says, sounding a little defensive. “Jordan’s a natural with people. People open up around him, but he also knows when something needs to be shut down. He’s ridiculously capable, and charismatic, and tactful, and kind.” Parkinson smiles. Marietta doesn’t—Merlin save her from Lee Jordan fangirls. “Anyway, in the end Jordan helped us all to say our piece.”

“So that’s it? You talked it out?” Marietta feels let down, as though somehow she’d been expecting something more—for Parkinson to admit to some divine revelation. 

“I think you owe me four or five questions now,” Pansy says, instead of answering.

“Hey, I didn’t tell you to go on a tangent.”

“Fine, fine. Technically that was one answer, I suppose. You bureaucrats like that, don’t you? Technicalities?”

“Ha, ha.”

“What are you doing to do about your ovary?” Parkinson asks. Marietta thinks it should kill the spirit of camaraderie that they’ve built up, but it doesn’t. It does Banish the levity, though.

“I don’t know.”

“Aw, come on, Edgecombe, I gave you a decent answer.”

“No, seriously. I don’t know. I have no idea what to do. The doctor—that’s like a Muggle Healer, sort of, you know?” Parkinson nods, as though she’s some expert now since King Jordan swooped in with Granger and McGonagall and who knows what other Gryffindors and redeemed her through the power of sharing. “Well it’s like I told you before, he says I can take these pills, which may or may not work, or I can have surgery, but I might just develop a new cyst.”

Parkinson lets out a whistle of dismay. “Shitty choices.”

“No kidding.”

“And there’s definitely nothing the Healers can do?”

“It’s my turn,” Marietta says, because she wants to hear more about Parkinson. It feels so good to talk with someone—to listen. She hadn’t been much for soul barring at school, even with Cho. Her dorm mates had teased her, sometimes lightheartedly, other times impatiently, for prefacing most of her statements with “My mother says…”

This is different. It feels good to talk about her own feelings, to laugh at her mother, to be heard by another girl her age. And to listen too—the back and forth is not, she thinks, a _quid pro quo_ —it’s not as mercenary as reciprocity. It’s more like… friendship, or at least Marietta thinks it could be. “Tell me what Voices Heard changed for you. How did talking about your feelings turn you into a dinner lady for the new order of Mugglelovers?”

“It didn’t,” Pansy says, sharply. “Listening did.” She sips her tea and pulls another biscuit from the sleeve. “I was sat in a room full of people I or people like me had harmed—some of them were less family members because of the Death Eaters.” Parkinson’s voice goes soft. “Because of my father... When suffering people are sat down in front of you and you’re not allowed to look away, to stop your ears… it takes a huge amount of wilfulness to ignore it, to downplay it. And I just… couldn’t anymore, I guess? I don’t really have a better answer. It was a shitty year. As part of the programme I had to cop to all kinds of shit I’d done and said. It felt awful. I felt gross like all the time.”

“And now?”

“Now I feel gross less of the time. When survivors share their stories and re-educate people who were raised like we were—people raised thinking their privileges are rights—so that it doesn’t happen again, I feel less gross.” Marietta expects to see Parkinson’s trademark shrug, but it doesn’t come. “You owe my two now.”

“Fine.”

“Can I call you Edgey? I feel like it suits you.”

Marietta grabs the teapot and refills their mugs to buy time to let her heartbeat settled down. After a moment, she answers. “Only if I can call you Parky.”

“I like it,” Parkinson says. So does Marietta.

“What’s your other question?”

“What are you going to do now?”

“I told you, I don’t know. I need more time to go over the pros and cons of the medication versus surgery. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I wasn’t thinking at all when I was at the doctor’s last time, maybe I should try to see him again—”

“I didn’t mean that.” Parkinson—Parky?—looks at her over her steaming mug. “I mean your job.”

“What about my job?”

“The employment of all Ministry employees found to be complicit in You-Know-Who’s regime is contingent in full participation in Voice’s Heard.”

“I know.”

“Well, you missed today’s session. They could sack you.”


	4. Voices Heard

After Marietta _Scourgify_ s the mugs, she’s about to do the teapot, but pauses. Marietta doesn’t usually bother with the pot—it’s just her and she usually brews tea one mug at a time. She has a tendency to get lost in a book, or in paperwork she’s brought home, and let the pot get tepid. She picks up the pot and finds it still a bit warm. The feeling is welcome to her hands—evidence she’d spent the afternoon in company. It feels like casting a lifeline and finding purchase. She casts another _Scourgify_ , cleaning the pot before placing it in the front of the cupboard hopefully; maybe she’ll have cause to use it again soon. 

She doesn’t know up from down right now, doesn’t know what to do about her mother, about this revelation about her birth—her past; doesn’t know what any of it means for her place in this new society Shacklebolt as his people are building around her. She doesn’t even know what she’s going to do with about the cyst on her ovary or whether she’ll be gainfully employed tomorrow.

What she _does_ know is that, with her mother in Azkaban and out of Marietta’s good graces, these are all decisions for her to make. It feels scary, and big. Maybe having these kinds of big feelings and not just going straight back to bed every morning is adulthood.

Marietta puts the teapot back in the cupboard and smiles weakly. Everything might be a disaster, but also, without meaning to, she appears to have gained a friend, someone interested in her life. And that’s not nothing.

***

Marietta doesn’t have a great sleep, but she has _some_ sleep, and the way things are going, she’ll take it. She’s got bags under her eyes so dark that she looks like an Inferius, but she drags herself into work early. She needs to talk to her boss.

In Kerr’s office, she fesses up to missing Voices Heard, and explains that she missed the session for “personal reasons.” 

“I’m afraid this is out of my hands, Edgecombe,” he informs her. “The VH initiative has been implemented from the top. Department Heads were told to notify the Minister’s office of employees not taking it seriously, to log all absences. There’s nothing I can do; I sent the memo yesterday.”

“I understand,” says Marietta. “Will I have a chance to make my case to the Minister’s staff?”

Kerr shrugs. It’s not as endearing as when Parkinson does it.

Her meeting with Kerr clears up precisely nothing, so Marietta heads back to work and carries on as though she still has a job.

She continues in that vein throughout the week, and no one sacks her. Another Voices Heard session comes and goes, and the only change is that Marietta listens instead of trying not to hear. This week Anthony is talking about being a pureblood with known allegiance to Dumbledore at Hogwarts last year. Two weeks ago, Marietta knows she would have dismissed Goldstein’s suffering as his comeuppance for breaking the rules, for opposing the Ministry. She can actually hear the ingrained thoughts trying to rise to the forefront of her mind, to blame him for his own suffering and his torture, his fears of being expelled, his hunger and longing for home in the room of requirement, his ruminations about whether his family was even still alive. Rebels shouldn’t be surprised to face consequences, she hears in her own mental voice, the one that sounds so much like her mother. But today—and she doesn’t know if it’s because of her conversion with Parkinson, or because she knows Anthony, or both—but she doesn’t just listen and hear, she sees him as he speaks. She sees the pain on his face, the pride. She can tell when he has to pause because his throat is thick, or when he has to laugh because he’ll cry if he doesn’t. 

This whole internal scene unfolds repeatedly as Anthony speaks. Marietta’s feelings, her judgements, her assumptions all mingle confusingly with the question: what would she have done in his place? If her family had been for Dumbledore, for Muggleborns, for Potter, surely her wartime position would have been utterly different. It’s profoundly confusing and deeply uncomfortable. When Marietta judges Anthony for standing with his family out of habit, and then imagines him so scared for his life that he went into hiding, living in close quarters with no privacy off what rations Aberforth Dumbledore could provide, wondering how his family was faring back home—perhaps praying they were doing as well as he was—she feels a little disgusted with herself. She can see why Parkinson had described her own feeling as gross.

When Anthony’s done speaking and they have their mid-session lunch break, Parkinson walks over, steaming coffee in hand, and hands it to Marietta.

The conflict of emotions and thoughts doesn’t stop when the session is over, to Marietta’s chagrin. She goes back to her desk and as she works, she notices every so often that she’s stopped, lost in thought about what war time was like for Cho, for the rest of their giggling school cliqué. She wants to ask what it was like for Parkinson. Her stomach drops at that. She has a feeling that hearing Parkinson’s story would bring the confused, conflicted, gross feeling to new levels.

She needs to think about something else for a bit. She vaguely recalls Jordan saying something on day one about “sitting with their feelings.” At the time she’d thought it was hogwash. Now she’s less sure. 

Still, even if Jordan is right, she’s been sitting with these feelings for hours. 

She tries to think of something else, and all she manages to come up with is the giant question mark of what to do about her cyst.

She looks at the clock. It’s a few minutes to five. She wonders what time Muggle libraries close. 

She wonders where Muggle libraries _are_.

***

Marietta knocks on the door to Parkinson’s place outside London, which is answered by a woman who can only be Parkinson’s mother.

“Yes?” She asks with an accent that makes Marietta feel like her existence is a dreadful imposition.

“Is Pansy here? I’m her—“ Marietta fishes around in her mind for the right word. Are they friends? “—colleague,” she finishes.

Mrs Parkinson pulls a condescending face, but Marietta can hear footsteps behind her. “Mum, who’s at the door? Edgey!”

“Edgey?” Mrs Parkinson sneers.

“Marietta Edgecombe, mum.”

“I see.” Mrs Parkinson disappears into the flat without another word, and Marietta thinks she must have taught her daughter everything she doesn’t know about manners. On Pansy, she thinks, the lack of airs and graces is wholly different. Mrs Parkinson gives off an air that suggests niceties and politeness are beneath her, whereas Pansy gives off no air at all—it’s as thought she genuinely doesn’t care.

“Sorry about that,” she apologises, gesturing to hallway down which Mrs Parkinson retreated. “Mum gets shirty when she has to answer the door herself.” A shrug. Marietta smiles. 

“Are you busy?” Marietta asks.

“Right now?”

“Yeah.”

“That depends what’s on offer.”

“I’m afraid I’m actually looking for something of a guide, and since you’re the self-professed expert on Muggle culture now.”

“Shhh! I don’t want another fight with mum right now. She knows what I do for work—she knows how I feel; we’ve hashed it out so many times… But she doesn’t get it. She resents that I have to work at all, that we live here.” Parkinson gestures to the very humble digs. “Doesn’t stop her from living off my pay packet, please note.” Pansy sounds a bit disappointed, but not bitter. “Anyway, a guide to what?”

“I want to go to the library.”

“Since when do Ravenclaws need guides for the library? Edgey, methinks this pretext is awfully thin.” Pansy begins to smirk. She looks smug as hell, but Marietta doesn’t bite. There will be time for biting later, she hopes.

“I want to go to the Muggle library,” she clarifies. 

“Circe’s saddlebags.” Parky exhales like she’s steadying herself for something. “Okay. We can do this.” Pansy looks resolved. “I have the perfect reinforcements. You’re not going to like it,” she adds cheerfully.

***

Marietta does not like it. Yet she is paradoxically, simultaneously incredibly glad.

“Hi Edgecombe,” Granger says, walking towards them at the entrance of the building. “She doesn’t seem surprised, or angry. She seems very measuredly neutral. 

“Hi Granger,” Marietta answers.

“Granger,” Pansy says, in chipper tones. “Thanks for coming. No Lee?” 

“Lee’s at home. He’s got a lot of work to do.”

“Like you don’t?” Pansy remarks.

“The siren song of the library,” Hermione says with a fond smile.

Before they arrived, Marietta had told Pansy in no uncertain terms that she didn’t want to see Granger, never mind ask her for a favour. Pansy responded that, as enthusiastic as she is about Robyn and Jammie Dodgers, she really doesn’t know anything about navigating Muggle libraries. “Besides, you should apologise to Granger. It’ll suck, but I’ll be good for you. You have to start somewhere.”

“What makes you think I need to apologise to Granger?” Marietta’d asked, genuinely curious.

“When someone gets as sour about another person as you do about Granger, nine times out of ten it’s because they know they owe them an apology.”

“It’s Granger who needs to apologise!” Marietta insists.

“I never said she doesn’t.” 

“So,” Granger says, and Marietta can literally see her mustering the Gryffindor courage (and self-righteousness) to be the bigger person. _Not today. Not here. Not in front of Parky._ Marietta hopes that petty impulses don’t negate the sincerity of apologies.

“I’m sorry I ratted on you, Granger, and Potter, and the rest of the DA. It was a rotten thing to do,” Marietta offers before Granger can beat her to it. She casts a glance at Parky, who’s wearing a shit eating grin.

“I— that is—” Granger stammers. “Thank you,” she says, regaining her composure. “I owe you an apology too. I should never have hexed you at all, never mind with a curse I knew would leave a permanent mark. How is—?”

“Madam Pomfrey managed to reduce the spots a bit back in fifth year. My mum took me to St Mungos, but they couldn’t do anymore than she had. They’ve faded a bit with time, too.” At that Granger has the audacity to look slightly downcast about her spellwork.

“Oh? I can’t see them now. Do you…?”

“I use a glamour.”

“I’m sure I could remove them you know, as the original caster. With a bit of research.”

“I appreciate that, Granger. And I accept your apology. I know you were just trying to protect your friends. I know that.” Marietta takes a fortifying breath, closes her eyes and thinks of Parky. Like she’d said, this sucks, but Marietta needs to do this. She can’t recall ever before serving herself a slice of humble pie. She suppose that means it’s about time for a heaping portion. “I know that I put you and your friends in danger. I didn’t realise how serious the stakes were at the time. I should have. You told us. And so did Potter. But I didn’t get it. I didn’t want to. But I get it now— that is, I am trying to get it now,” she corrects herself. She’s pretty sure Gryffindors appreciate honesty, probably the more humiliating the better. Pansy nods her approval and gives her a thumbs up.

“I accept yours too,” Granger says, graciously. “I’ve listened to a lot of testimonies from other pureblood youths. I know it can be hard to defy your parents, or even to face the reality that they could be doing wrong.”

“About that,” Pansy says, casual as anything. “Edgey’s just found out that her mother’s been lying to her her whole life about her blood status and that, actually, she’s a Muggleborn with a condition called endometriosis. We’re here because she needs help finding information on her options because she wants to say ‘no’ to drugs… and surgery.”

“Oh,” says Granger, eyes wide, mouth open. It takes her only a moment to gather herself and launch into action. Marietta can see how she helped win a war. “Well the best place to start will be in the 600s, Gynecology is 618, I think. Though we may have more luck online as far as finding newer, more avant garde protocols is concerned. And of course you’ll want to read about the ethics of informed consent; that’ll probably by in the 170s. I don’t want to compare pumpkin juice to Butterbeer, Marietta, but my parents are dentists, and there’s a real culture of trust in Muggle medicine—not unlike with Healers, really—so a lot of people don’t realise that they actually have a lot of agency when it comes to—“

Pansy waggles her eyebrows at Marietta as though to say, ‘see, I told you.’ They follow a happily tangenting Granger inside.

***

Over the next fortnight Marietta splits her time between ignoring her mother’s owls requesting another visit, going to work, reading in the British Library, and hanging out with Parky, discussing her options. Sometimes Granger comes, and even Jordan, who, Marietta grudgingly admits, really does have more charisma than Celestina Warbeck. It’s just so difficult not to like him when he drops by, greeting them with croissants and asking Marietta and Parky how the flirting is going.

Marietta thinks that would have embarrassed her before. She knows it would have made her feel like she ought to be embarrassed. But, when Parky answers, “Pfft, I’m pulling all the weight.” Or “Edgey’s technique is coming along,” it’s so hard not to feel sparkly.

More often than not, though, it’s just her and Pansy. Granger’s got her off to a fabulous start, but she’s the busiest person sans children that Marietta has ever met—she’s got her own work to do, and Marietta is thankful for the help she gave her finding her feet in unknown surroundings. She still owes Granger something from Flourish and Blotts for teaching her how to avoid porno when using an online search engine on a public computer, for which Parky called her a spoil sport, earning her a high five form Jordan.

What’s more, Marietta cannot deny that she’s got a much better ally in indignance than when it’s just she and Parky. When it comes to outrage about how understudied Muggle women’s anatomy is—and about how many conditions related to chronic pain and other ghastly symptoms are dismissed as normal because they are related to the fluctuation of hormones—no one can top Hermione Granger.

Marietta appreciates that about her. “I realise now that I might have been diagnosed sooner, but I thought it was normal to be in utter hell for my whole period,” Marietta tells Granger one day.

“It’s disgusting how inequitable and phallocentric medicine is, and it’s not just Muggle medicine, either! What you just said, I mean, it’s true, isn’t it—whether a woman is a witch or a Muggle, she’s raised to expect regular pain and taught that her only recourse is to endure it. And then when women do seek help, well! Just look at how they treated you at St Mungos! Next!”

Yes, in the last couple of weeks, Marietta has been revising her opinion on Granger. 

In point of fact, she’s been revising her opinions about a lot of things. As her research progresses, Marietta’s can’t ignore the virtual absence of any meaningful work that bridges magical and Muggle anatomies and approaches to Healing and medicine. One afternoon, as she reads another text on women’s anatomy that tells her nothing about why her body developed a cyst, it occurs to Marietta that the absence of knowledge that is affecting her as a woman is also affecting her as a Muggleborn. 

“Why do you think, I mean, why do you _really_ think, that there’s so little concrete information about women’s bodies?” She asks Parky, Jordan, and Granger as the four of them sit in a Greggs eating greasy pasties and drinking burned coffee. 

Granger looks poised to speak, but before she can, Jordan answers, deadpan: “Because women are shit, obviously.”

Granger shouts “Lee!” as Parky snorts so hard coffee shoots out of her nose. Marietta joins her in laughter, albeit less uproariously. She holds out a napkin to Parky, who is shuddering with laughter, wheezing that Jordan has caused terrible, irrevocable damage to her nose.

Once she gets a hold of herself and Granger has realised that Jordan was joking, Parky picks up where Jordan left off. “I mean, come on, just look at all the authors of what you’ve been reading. They’re all men. They just don’t get periods. I’m not sure they should try.”

“You’re not wrong,” Granger agrees. Jordan nods, looking apologetic on behalf of his gender.

“Yeah.” Marietta sighs. “To be honest I think I’ve reached my quota as far having men tell me about my privates. The other day I checked out a photo essay on vulvas just because the photographer was a woman.”

“There were poems,” Parky elaborates, laughing at the memory.

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Marietta grimaces.

“You’ve been holding out on us, Edgecombe!” Jordan scolds. “We demand a dramatic reading. Don’t we, Hermione?”

“It would be interesting to compare women’s voices on the subject to mens,” Hermione admits.

“Hey,” Jordan says, “on that note, have you heard about the Vagina Monologues? Americans…”

The conversation veers into Muggle popular culture, leaving Marietta behind. She doesn’t mind though; she’s glad to sit and listen and let their voices wash over her—the first circle of friends she’s ever earned on her own.

She’s too distracted to focus fully on the conversation going on around her, though she thinks Jordan might be making orgasm noises, but even that can’t keep her from falling into the well-worn cycle of thoughts about what this whole endo situation means for her. She’s been using research, in fact, to try to avoid it. Everytime she thinks: Muggleborn, she reaches for another book. 

It’s just that it’s beyond weird to have your blood-status change over night. Her whole identity has morphed into something else, something she’s been taught is less than who she is. And yet, her past remains unchanged. She still grew up thinking she was pureblood, enjoying the associated privileges. But confronted with a Muggle illness that Healing won’t address, she’s finds herself furious about her treatment by Healer Davies, by St Mungos. There must be other Muggleborns and, even more rarely, she assumes, half-bloods with Muggle-origin conditions that are treated like her—like oddities, outsiders, beyond help because of their bodies. Handed over the the liaison office and then left to do the best they can with the NHS. Of course, most have more competency in the Muggle world than Marietta had, but that doesn’t make it right for Healers to ignore the needs of a growing contingent of their patients. Someone should do something about it.

***

“Do you want to go axe throwing?” Parky asks her from her spot at the far end of Marietta’s sofa.

They’ve been reading for a few hours, and in the last forty-five minutes or so, Marietta’s noticed Parky’s feet twitching more, her legs jiggling. She’s restless.

“What?”

“I saw an add in a Muggle newspaper; Finch-Fletchley showed me. Don’t worry—it was the Guardian.”

Marietta ignores the reference she doesn’t get and focusses on what seems to be the pertinent information. “Isn’t that a bit dangerous?”

“Probably,” Parky admits. “How about fish and chips, then?”

Marietta wants to keep reading, but the thought of a chippy whets her appetite. She’s ravenous, she realises.

“Fine,” she agrees, as thought it’s a hardship.

***

They Apparate to the corner where Diagon and Knockturn Alleys meet and walk to The Salty Seaman, where they order a couple of pieces of battered cod and two orders of chips. “You don’t have a healthy appreciation for vinegar,” Parky remarks as they claim a table to wait.

“I just don’t like my chips soggy,” Marietta counters.

“You say tomato,” Pansy sings.

“They’re going to let me keep my job.”

“What? Who?”

“The Minister's Office. They finally asked me about the session I missed. I said I was in dealing with some upsetting personal news.”

“And they just bought that?”

“I’m not sure. But since my attendance record’s been clean aside from that, and since someone on the staff apparently put in a good word for me—“

“Must have been Jordan,” Parky says, like a smartarse.

“Must have been.” Marietta smiles. “I can keep my job. But I do have to make up the session I missed when the next cycle starts.”

“That seems fair,” Pansy says. 

Maritta can’t disagree with that. “Yeah, it does. Only…” She pauses. She’s shared the most intimate secrets of her body with Parky, who’s been nothing but supportive. But all that—her mother, her endo—those are all things that are happening _to_ her. Whereas this… this feels like the first decision of any consequence that Marietta has ever made on her own. To share her idea with anyone is nerve wracking.

“Don’t you dare drop an only like that. Just tell me. You know you want to.”

“I’m not sure I want to stay on at the Ministry.”

“Oh,” says Pansy. 

“Yeah.”

“So why not? I had you down for a lifer.”

“Well…” Marietta looks down at the woodgrain of the table and picks at the peeling varnish with her nail. She hasn’t voiced her idea about to anyone yet. And it’s so out there. It’s probably a terrible idea. Parky will definitely ridicule it.

“Finishing your sentences is the first thing they teach you in the Sacred 28,” Parky jokes.

“Oh, would you drop that,” Marietta says with a chuckle. “Obviously I’m super embarrassed I ever coveted being a member now that I know one of you.” She sticks out her tongue. Parky returns the gesture. Sparkly.

“I want to study Muggle anatomy.”

“Uhhhh,” Parky says, drawing out the vowel. “Isn’t that what you’ve been doing for the last fortnight?”

“Yeah, but I want to do it seriously. At university.”

“Edgey! You’re going rogue!”

Marietta laughs. “I want to earn some credentials and then try to get into the Healing programme. I have the NEWTs for it. I really think there’s a huge gap in care where Muggleborns are concerned. The Healers don’t know anything. As long as a Muggleborn only gets magical illnesses, it’s no big deal. But obviously—”

“Anomalies happen—“ Parky finishes.

“Yeah.”

“Are you sure that this isn’t a sad crusade to find a way of fixing your cyst?”

“Is that sad?” Marietta asks. “I mean, that’s not the point. The point is to improve the quality of care.”

“As in no surgery.”

“Ideally.”

“Hm.” Parky looks contemplative for a moment. “So I guess that just leaves one question then.”

“What’s that?”

“Where is our supper? This is dire!”

***

After supper, Marietta heads back to her flat. She casts a number of personal hygiene charms, dropping her glamour and cleaning her teeth. She’s started to feel crampy the last couple of days. With so many calls on her intellectual and emotional resources, she’s been distracted, not counting the days. Not that she needs to. For one, she’s as irregular as hell. For another, she can tell where she is based on the peculiarities of how she feels, body and psyche.

And right now, she feels pretty shit. That’s not all from PMS of course. There’s also Voices Heard, which, as Pansy foretold, brings with it a lot of rough feelings. It’s hard to listen to people talk about being persecuted by the Ministry and then return to the desk at which she’d worked for the regime. But she can’t undo it. She is beginning to see, though, her complicity, and she does feel sorry about it. More everyday. It doesn’t feel productive, but Jordan assures her it is.

There’s her mother too. Marietta hasn’t visited it again or returned any of her owls. She doesn’t know what she’d say. And she’s worried about what more her mother might have to say. What if she wants Marietta to keep lying? 

And then there’s whatever’s going on between her and Parky. Not that it makes her feel shitty, but it definitely makes her feel. Marietta thinks it’s bizarre that at the worst time in her life—as it’s literally falling apart—she’s happier than she’s ever been. It’s not that she’s happy all the time. She’s not even happy most of the time. But she has a sense of purpose she can truly call her own for the first time, and she’s not sure if it’s the thing itself, of the novelty of it, but it’s empowering. And it definitely doesn’t hurt to be flirted with everyday by a cool girl. Marietta likes bantering with Parky. She thinks she’d like more. But she’s not sure how to proceed. 

She looks at herself in the mirror, runs a finger across the faded letters on her forehead, and heads to bed.

***

The first day of Marietta’s period doesn’t land on a Voices Heard day, so she sends in an owl saying she’s sick. She’s spent so much time thinking about how to fix the cyst in the long term that she really hadn’t planned on how to deal with another period in the short term. She can’t just wing it. That didn’t work last time.

She owls Parky.

***

Parky Apparates straight into Marietta’s bedroom a half an hour later. “I consulted with Hermione, and I’ve brought supplies.” She waves around a plastic Muggle shopping bag. Marietta supposes that she should have anticipated this when she summoned Parky, but suddenly, sitting in her Pygmie Puff pajamas in bed, hair unbrushed, no glamour up, she feels more exposed than ever. Sure, Parky knows all about her private business—literally, and so do Granger and Jordan, come to that—but that’s all been so theoretical, words and diagrams on pages.

Marietta pulls at her fringe, trying to cover as much of her forehead as possible. “You went to a Muggle store?” she asks, trying to slip back into their usual easy repartée.

“Where do you think I get my Jammie Dodgers?” Parky parries. “And you don’t have to do that. We’re 19—we all have spots.”

Marietta drops her hand back into her lap and stares at it. “I’ve been wondering about it,” she admits.

“Oh? I thought Granger’s looking into it in her spare time. Then again, I don’t think she has any, so it could be a while.”

“Yeah, she is,” Marietta confirms. “It’s nice of her. I don’t want to have it forever, even if ratting on them was shitty of me. But it’s not that. I’ve been thinking, in the meantime, about… not covering it?”

“Sick of refreshing the glamour a half a dozen times a day?”

“Try a dozen. And yes, but also… I don’t know. With Voices Heard and everything. I mean… I guess I just feel like I kind of owe something?”

“Amends,” Parky voices her understanding. “I get that, but amends isn’t about martyring yourself. It’s about fessing up, righting what can be righted, and doing better when it comes to everything else. It’s not about flagellation.”

Marietta takes in Parky’s words. “I’ll have to think about that,” she says. And she intends to. For now though, she asked Parky here for a reason.

“What did you get?” Marietta gestures for Parky to have a seat on her bed. She herself is still under the covers, though she sits up, bunching the warm blankets around her pelvis for some relief.

“The thickest gauge tampons Boots carries,” she says, pulling out a little blue box. “Pads likewise,” another box, this time green, “and a hot water bottle. Granger wanted to get you this boring one that was just a maroon rectangle. But not to worry, I intervened and got you a pink heart instead.” Parky pulls something pink and wobbly out of the bag with a flourish.

“I’m sure that’ll make all of the difference,” Marietta says with a laugh. “What’s it do?” She already knows what pads and tampons are. After all of her reading, she’s pretty sure that and Parky, and, by association, Granger and Jordan, are the foremost experts in the British Isles.

“You fill it with hot water and lay it on top of the sore area. Granger says it’s way more effective than a Warming Charm—more directed. Lucky you, you can just keep heating up the water with a spell.” Parky unscrews the top from the hot water bottle, fills it with an _Auguamenti_ , casts another spell to heat up the water inside, and puts the cap back on. She passes the bottle to Marietta. “How’s that for a merger of magic and Muggle, Edgey?”

“Not bad,” Marietta concedes.

“Thought you’d like that,” Parky says with a smile. “Be careful, by the way; it’s hot. You should put keep it on top of your blankets, or wrap it in a flannel or something, so it’s not directly on your skin. Oh, and Granger says you should only use those really thick tampons on days when you’re bleeding most heavily, otherwise they might be painful to remove. And you can use them with a pad to double down.”

“Thank you,” Marietta says, and she hopes that Parky can tell she means it. A month ago she would have found the very idea of having Pansy Parkinson—or anyone—talk to her about best practices for containing menstrual blood beyond horrifying. Well, things change.

She’s changed, or changing, or wants to change. She’s not sure exactly where the distinction lies. She has wondered, sitting in Voices Heard sessions, if she would have changed at nineteen no matter what, or if her endometriosis somehow led her here. If she still thought she were pureblood, healthy, if her sole ambition was still working her way to heading up a Ministry department, to living up to her mother, she wonders if she’d have been able to access any empathy for the people who speak at Voices Heard. She wonders if she’d ever have bothered to try.

She supposes the point is academic. She’s here now.

She’s here now. 

With Parky.

***

Marietta takes the next two days off as well—her first three days are always the worst. After that, she can manage. Day two is a Voices Heard day, though, so she doubles down as per Hermione’s suggestion, packing some extra tampons and pads with her, and heads in for those two hours.

Dennis Creevey is the speaker, and his story is harrowing. Marietta gets home feeling flattened. She’s glad she went, though. She goes to the loo for a fresh tampon and pad—Hermione is a genius; they are so much more comfortable that Barrier Charms, which always feel like they’re are pushing against the walls of Marietta’s vagina—and heads to bed, where her hot water bottle lays waiting for her.

It’s 2:15, and she’d love to sleep through a couple of hours of cramps, but she can’t. Instead, she thinks.

A few hours later, Parky Apparates over with shawarma.

“How’re you holding up?” she inquires, handing Marietta her foil-wrapped dinner.

“I feel grim,” Marietta answers, “but I think I’ve decided to make another appointment with the gynaecologist. I still have his card around, somewhere.”

“You going to try the pills?”

“No.”

“Edgey! You can’t be serious.” 

“You’ve read almost as much as I have about the procedure. As surgery’s go, it’s low risk.”

“It’s not _no_ risk.”

“No. But if I don’t do anything, it’s not a risk that I’ll keep getting flattened every month. It’s a guarantee. And I don’t even want to think about the possibility of torsion.”

Parky grimaces as she bites into her shawarma. 

“You’re not going to try and talk me out of it?”

“No. You’re right. It’s scary, but you’re the one who has to live with it either way. What if the cyst grows back, though?”

“Maybe by then I’ll be a trainee Healer.”

“You’re really going for it, huh? Healer training after a Muggle degree?”

“It’ll probably be impossible to get anyone to take Muggle anatomy seriously even _with_ credentials. Without them…”

“Yeah.” Pansy rips off another bite of her shawarma and chews, looking thoughtful. There’s sauce at the corner of her mouth and Marietta’s ovaries are screaming at her and the whole scene is categorically unsexy.

“Parky?”

“Yeah?”

“You know those Sacred 28 unwritten rules you like to go on about?”

Parky smiles. 

“What’s the one for wooing a girl after she brings you dinner and menstrual supplies?”

Parky smiles wider, stuffs the last bite of shawarma into her mouth, and drops the foil into the dustbin by Marietta’s bed.

“Traditionally the suitor—suiteuse?—whatever...would invite the wooee into bed with her for a nap.”

“Just a nap, huh?”

“Maybe some spooning.”

“If you let me be the big spoon, I’ll throw in hand-holding,” Marietta says, lifting up one corner of the blanket.

Parky climbs in, fully clothed, and lines her back up with Marietta’s front. Marietta has never cuddled anyone before. Not as far as she can remember. She pulls Parky closer to her, back flush against Marietta’s torso. She’s warm, and she smells good. Like shawarma and cosy neck skin. Marietta tries to match up her breathing with Parky’s, then keep it in sync. 

It feels delicate. _She_ feels delicate, even though she’s the big spoon. She and Parky have never held a silence for this long before, and somehow it feels as exciting as swapping secrets.

As Parky’s lungs expand with each inhale, her shoulders press into the Marietta’s breasts a little harder. Despite the pain in her pelvis, Marietta feels flutters of arousal and smiles.

“You know,” she whispers into Parky’s ear, trying not to startle here, “after surgery we could… I mean, I don’t like having thing… I don’t like putting things, you know, inside, but maybe after— after I’m recovered and everything...”

“Oh Edgey,” Parky laughs at her, and Marietta joins in nervously. “Were you a teenager at boarding school? Haven’t you ever heard of dry humping? It’s like the official pastime. And besides,” Parky grabs Marietta’s right hand with her own, twining their fingers together and pulling them to rest on her breast, “Aren’t you getting ahead of yourself? I believe I was promised hand holding.”

Marietta kisses the back of Parky’s head.

“Oh, twist my rubber arm, why don’t you?” Parky says, turning her head to the side and making a pucker noise with her lips. Marietta lifts her head off the pillow they’re sharing and plants a kiss on Parky’s waiting lips.

**Author's Note:**

> As a person with endo, navigating sex--any kind of bodily movement and interaction, in fact--is something that I do a lot. Writing this fic gave me the chance to _think_ more about things I'd been _feeling_ for a long time, about the ways in which our bodies and our feelings, both emotional and physical, inform what we want and when. Picking this prompt seemed to me an interesting opportunity to explore not only women's health, but also how our desires are not static. What we want is in constant flux, and there's no way of knowing what we'll want in the future. I wanted to show that for Edgey and Parky, having sex off the table for the moment, as well as uncertainty about what might be possible and desirable later on, was not a deterrent from embarking on a love relationship. The future is never certain, and life is fleeting. I wanted to show that these women had enough respect and esteem for one another to enter boldly into a space where love could grow regardless of physicality.


End file.
